First Strike
by Nighthowler
Summary: Part 8 of 8! When President Bartlet threw out his opening pitch, was that sound the smack of a catcher’s mitt – or the crack of a gunshot?
1. Default Chapter

THE WEST WING _FIRST STRIKE_

_AUTHORS: The White House Angst Committee for the Love Of Bartlet (WHACLOB)._

- Stenographer and Majority Whip – a really BIG whip: SheilaVR.

- Committee Leader, Conscience and Troubleshooter: Anne Callanan

- Espionage and Rock Transportation: Kelly

- Security and Gatherer of Rocks – Thrown and Un-thrown: SamSingingWolf

- Carpentry, Fiddling and Genesis: Kathleen E. Lehew

_TIME INDEX: Projected continuation of "Memorial Day" (fifth season finale)._

_RATING: General (crisis)_

_DISCLAIMER: Even pooling our resources, no way could we have ever come up with such a brilliant creation entirely on our own. sigh Oh, and let it be iterated from the get-go that this is fun. Leave your reality check at the door and just enjoy the ride._

_ELABORATION ON COLLABORATION:_

- Kathleen: "When the credits faded, that was a shot."

- Sheila: "It was?"

- Anne: "It was not!"

- Kathleen: "Yes, it was!"

- Anne firm : "It wasn't."

- Sheila: "Too bad."

- Kathleen persistent : "Okay then, what if it WAS?"

- Sheila creative urge clearly rising : "It would certainly be a hell of a dramatic scenario."

- Anne: "Well, if you two want it that badly, you should write it."

long thoughtful pause on the part of the others 

- Anne: "Oh, dear Lord…"

_NOTES FROM THE COMMITTEE CHAIR:_

- Anne: "This is what happens when things start to get silly in an AIM chat. Especially when you're also caught up in Season One-finale nostalgia and wild flights of fancy. I'm just saying, I was the voice of reason here."

_COMMENTS ON CAUSE AND EFFECT:_

- Kathleen protesting around a mouthful of donut hastily snatched from the frenzied grasp of the aforementioned Committee Chair : "NOT my fault!"

_PREDICTION ON SAID EFFECT AND THE REQUISITE BLAME:_

- Sheila feeling very self-conscious about being heaped with credit by fellow conspirators : "I am not a homicidal maniac. (Of course, you only have my word on that.) But what I put the President through –! Is the Secret Service after me yet? Is _Martin Sheen_ after me?"

_SUBJECT: When Bartlet threw out his opening pitch, was that sound the smack of a catcher's mitt – or the crack of a gunshot?_

** CHAPTER 1 **

"Good evening, sports fans! Happy Memorial Day, and happy Opening Day as well! I'm Harry Guyslink."

"And I'm June Webb. Welcome to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, where we are only moments away from kicking off the season opener of America's favorite sport!"

The camera panned across the crowd. No faces, no individuals: just a multitude of seething humanity coalesced into one group entity with its entire attention focused on the playing field below. Some members in this crowd of nearly fifty thousand carried their own radios or portable television sets, all the better to catch every minor detail and every line of commentary on the spectacle taking place in this modern arena.

Across the country and around the world – for while it was a game with American origins, it was also a game whose popularity defied borders – in homes and in offices, in bars and in cars, people settled back to watch or tuned in to listen. Even if they couldn't be there in person, the play-by-play would put them right in the midst of it all.

"Yes, the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees will be starting us off in style. We're honored to have been chosen to host the first game for 2004… but that's not the _only_ honor in store for us tonight, is it, June?"

"No, indeed, Harry. Tonight we are in for a _very_ special treat. The first pitch will be thrown out by none other than the President of the United States!"

"Right on! I don't know how they wrangled it – President Bartlet has never thrown out a first pitch before."

"He's well into his second term, too. Since Taft, every President except Carter has thrown out at least one ceremonial first pitch during his tenure. If President Bartlet hadn't been re-elected, he would have broken a long-standing and proud tradition."

"I think we can chalk it up to his rather busy schedule, June. In fact, I'm amazed he's found time to come here tonight, given recent events in the Middle East."

"I agree, after that atrocious terrorist bombing in Gaza just yesterday, which killed two Congressmen, a Congressional aide and an _admiral_, and seriously injured a member of the White House staff. There's also a very real chance of a complete breakdown of peace talks. The President is under a lot of pressure on all sides to retaliate with military force, and fast. It's clear that he doesn't want to launch such a conflict without thinking it through _very_ carefully, but he'll probably have to make up his mind before long. This can't have been a relaxing day for him by any means."

"It's a terrible thought. Some people might say that being here is a frivolous waste of time when there's war threatening. But you know, I'd say that's all the more reason for him to take time out for the people. So let's leave the politics for another day and just enjoy the game."

"I hope the President can do the same, Harry. There must be some public relations angle to his coming here, but he probably needs the diversion more than anyone else."

"If it's a diversion he wants, we'll certainly provide it! As a rule Oriole Park sees a good turnout for every home opener – but tonight the stands are _packed!_ Look at that aerial view on Camera Two. The President can enjoy the fact that he's directly responsible for quite a large percentage of these eager fans. I wonder if we've hit the bursting point yet."

"From our view here behind home plate, I'd believe it. For the interest of our viewers, the official count of Camden Yards' capacity has been revised to 48,272, down from 48,876. I think the fire code had something to do with it, so that not too many people are crammed into the standing area."

"They've got to stop super-sizing those French fries. By the way, I dug up a few other bits of trivia for you, June. You may already know this, but this stadium is situated only two blocks from the birthplace of Babe Ruth himself. Also, Ruth's father used to operate a café on Conway Street – the exact location of which is now in center field."

"Really? I didn't know _that_."

"And the playing field is distinctly asymmetrical, as I'm sure our viewers can see. I haven't been able to figure out why that is, though."

"Now you've got _me_ curious. I _do_ know that the turf is natural Maryland Bluegrass."

"No other kind will do. And here's something else. Home plate was moved back seven feet for the 2001 season."

"It was?"

"Yep – but it was returned to its original spot the next season because the new layout, quote, 'adversely affected the viewing angle of the batter's eye,' unquote. Coincidentally, there was a significant drop in home runs for that year."

"That might've had _something_ to do with it. You've really been boning up, Harry. You and the President have a lot in common."

"Why, I'm flattered."

"Did I ever tell you that I met him once?"

"No!"

"Okay, I admit he was only Governor then. It was at a softball game in Concord."

"No kidding! Lucky girl. And I didn't know he liked softball, too. Then tonight should be a double delight for him!"

"Oh, that was years ago. I'm sure he won't remember me."

"You never know; he's got a reputation for remembering some pretty amazing facts – oh, hey! We've just received word that the motorcade has arrived! The President will appear in just a few minutes!"

"Excellent! We're all ready for him! Now I'm not trying to inject a depressing note into tonight's festivities, but this will almost certainly be the last time in a long time that _any_ President comes to Baltimore on Opening Day."

"Depressing but all too likely, June. Some of us will remember the Senators, the franchise that used to be based in Washington. Considering his hectic schedule and tight security requirements, there was little point in sending the President to another state when he could throw out the first pitch in his own city."

"Yes, he'd need to have a trip already planned that just happened to coincide with Opening Day somewhere else. And that doesn't happen very often. Inevitably for him, politics has to take precedence."

"Indeed. Anyway, the Senators were disbanded in 1976, so our national leaders have come here almost exclusively ever since. I like to think that was because they've liked the Orioles personally, but the simple fact is we're closer to D.C. than any other team."

"And we've enjoyed that privilege for over twenty-five years. But for those fans who haven't yet heard, it is now confirmed that the Senators will be resurrected for next season. The Montreal Expos are moving south of the border – and that'll put a National League team right next door to the White House once again."

"Which will be the President's gain, but our loss. That's precisely why we've pulled out all the stops tonight. We want to be sure President Bartlet doesn't forget his evening with us. He sure deserves an exciting game. I wonder which team he's rooting for."

"I doubt he's _allowed_ to play favorites, Harry."

"Good point. Now the usual spot to stand for tossing out the first pitch is right behind home plate. Let's turn to Camera Four and zoom in on the row reserved for the guest of honor."

"There! And as you can see in this same view, the catcher for the Orioles is already on the field, all set to go. It won't be long at all now."

"Keep your eye on the stand entrance just two rows further up; that's where the President is going to appear at any second. Looks like a lot of fans already know this ritual, since they're watching that spot as well… No, _wait!_ June, do you see what I see?"

"Yes! Movement in the _Grand_ Entrance! Good heavens, does that mean –"

"It does! Those men in black business suits can only be Secret Service agents – and that can only mean the President is right behind them. And _that_ means he's about to come right out onto the field! I don't believe this – he's not pitching from the stands at all. He's going to pitch from the _mound!_"

"Oh, this is _wonderful!_ As everyone else tuning in can now guess, no one told _us!_"

Mere seconds later, the public address system drowned out even the legions of fans: _"And now, for our ceremonial first pitch, tonight we are pleased to welcome… the President of the United States!"_

Suddenly, there he was: bursting out of the dark tunnel mouth into the blazing floodlights. He wore his own personal navy sports jacket, the Presidential seal emblazoned on the left breast, which fit the mood of the night just fine; it was the suit trousers and polished shoes that looked a bit odd here. He wore a fielder's mitt on his left hand, with a baseball tucked firmly in its web – but no team cap, the better to be seen (and apparently impartial… although some of his closest friends might politely argue the point). Waving to the crowds on all sides, he headed briskly for the pitcher's mound.

The welcoming cheer from forty-eight-thousand-plus voices could have drowned out _Air Force One_ itself. Tiny pinpricks of white light flashed all over the stands as countless cameras captured this moment.

The Man reached his destination in the center of the baseball diamond, stopped there and raised his right arm in acknowledgment, pivoting slowly to give everyone a good look. Two camera operatives hovered near first base, one video and one still. The woman wanted photos for the papers tomorrow; the man wanted live feed for the TVs now. The executive image dominated that huge billboard display, head and shoulders, up close and personal. Somehow this combination of both casual and formal attire, normally so incongruous on a sports field of any description, managed to preserve his dignity rather than detract from it. He didn't smile quite as broadly as usual, but no one could fault him for still having the Middle East and recent American deaths on his mind. Despite the colossal burden of leadership and the dire decisions of war versus peace that he was going to have to make very soon, he had come here to share a few minutes of treasured recreation with his constituents nationwide.

Many different people observed this with many different opinions. Standing a few steps back from the mouth of the Grand Entrance, White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry frowned. He had just finished a totally unexpected phone call, and was stewing over the public acceptance to a peace conference at Camp David by a controversial diplomat whom the United States had never invited in the first place. Also, he was fuming over an argument he'd had mere seconds ago with his Commander-in-Chief about the need and the duty to go to war. To cap it off, he was embattled by memories of watching his best friend step into the public eye for the first time as President-Elect. Both instances had produced a frenzy of lights, cameras and security; both had required that Bartlet go forward alone, leaving Leo behind. That had been a proud and heady moment, when their teamwork accomplished the near-impossible. This was the exact opposite: their teamwork had broken down over conflicting opinions and debating the rules of necessity, and Leo's experienced counsel for once had gone unheeded.

Charlie Young, the President's personal aide, lingered nearby. Fortunately the tunnel was wide enough and the flight of steps short enough that he had a low yet clear view. He held his boss's suit jacket and waistcoat folded neatly over one arm, making him look more than a little like a valet, but he also looked more than a little nervous. Presidents didn't pitch from the mound unless they were convinced that they wouldn't embarrass themselves in the process, but one never knows for sure until the ball is actually thrown. Nerves notwithstanding, Charlie wouldn't miss this moment for the world. He had played a personal role in the practice session, in a deserted hall of the White House, as catcher. The scene had been both laughable and laudable: the leader of the free world slowly backing away with each successful pitch, sweating, hair tousled, venting his political frustration over the hair-trigger crisis in the Holy Land that he alone was supposed to diffuse, as he got closer and closer to regulation distance…

Right on the entrance's threshold stood Special Agent Ron Butterfield, the man directly responsible for the President's safety. He held his right fist just below his jaw, keeping the radio transmitter in his sleeve proximate, even when he didn't have actual orders to impart. At least eight other bodyguards flanked him in this corridor, all on highest alert. Many other operatives were scattered throughout the stands right now, they had already swept the entire stadium, and they knew their jobs perfectly, but something could still happen. No one looking at the agent in charge could doubt his profession or his dedication. His eyes never left his protectee's retreating back, and not even his characteristic stone-faced reserve could mask his dislike for the very real risk that The Man was running right now. As the distance between them increased, as the politician he was sworn to defend with his own life moved further and further from his immediate protection, Ron's features became more and more grim.

In the nation's capital, in the West Wing, the White House Press Secretary settled into her desk chair and watched the TV coverage with a smile both pleased and apprehensive. C.J. Cregg had been one of the instigators of this PR coup. She had even managed to overcome the objections of the President himself, which was a considerable feat at any given time. As a result, she felt personally responsible for the outcome. Her next press briefing would either be pure delight, if the First Pitch went well – or utter disaster, if it didn't.

Two doors down, the White House Communications Director slouched in _his_ desk chair, rolling a baseball between hands that wouldn't stop fidgeting. Toby Ziegler wore a morose expression by default even on good days. Right now, however, he had sunk all the way to black fury. Scant minutes ago, their desperate efforts to resolve the current Middle East flashpoint, rather than ignite it past all saving, had received a major setback. Bad enough that they believed they had to exclude one of the more prominent international figures, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid inflaming the most incendiary of the other players; now that same individual had made it impossible for them to turn him away, which could all too easily demolish everything. Toby always took complications to the Bartlet administration's political designs personally, but the repercussions of _this_ upheaval could well be global.

Less than ninety feet away, the personal secretary to the President leaned her elbows on her desk and relaxed, calmly watching the show unfold. Debbie Fiderer knew all about the pitching practice in the Residence earlier: the ground balls, the demolished lamp, the political rant, and the eventual clean strike. Whether her boss did a great job or a poor one with the official pitch on the actual field – and she well understood the importance of a great job to his public image – it still wouldn't overshadow the events upstairs. She felt no small amusement at his comical failures… and no small pride at his final triumph.

On the other side of the Oval Office itself, the assistant to the White House Chief of Staff had her desk radio on, but she kept her attention on her volumes of work. Margaret Gallagher never lacked for things to do, and Leo's absence gave her more time to do them. Besides, she knew of the recent tensions between her boss and _his _boss, and preferred to forget that uncomfortable, positively _unnatural_ conflict as long as she could. Still, she knew the President better than most of the support staff, and couldn't resist tuning in for verbal coverage of Opening Day.

Speaking of the support staff, anyone who could get away with it was likewise glued to either a radio or TV. The Communications bullpen sported a solid bank of television sets, fully half of which carried current coverage from Camden Yards, and had drawn a proportionate audience. In the van stood the Press Secretary's assistant, Carol Fitzpatrick. She, and most of the employees now gathered with her, frequently saw their President up close, but that only increased their fondness – indeed, their possessiveness. He belonged to the nation, sure… but even more, he belonged to _them_. They wanted him to succeed for a far more personal reason than agreement with his politics. The fact that they were witnessing baseball history merely put the icing on the cake.

Across the street, in the Old Executive Office Building, the _former _White House Deputy Communications Director followed the pre-game show on his own TV with a much more subdued air. Will Bailey had made a difficult decision to leave the President's senior staff for the _Vice_-President's senior staff, even though most of his former colleagues considered that no less than treason. That decision had been justifiable and of potentially great benefit… but there were still times when he caught himself questioning his calculated career move. Like now. There was just something about the country's undisputed leader; something about The Man himself. Something that Will's current boss simply couldn't match.

Removed from all of this by a third of the globe and a wealth of haunting fear, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff paced constantly outside a German hospital operating room. Josh Lyman could not have cared less about baseball or even politics right now; on the other side of that wall his severely-injured assistant was fighting for her life. Donna Moss had been the lone survivor of that road bomb in Gaza, and scant minutes ago her encouraging recovery rate had crashed. Still, the TV in the waiting room was turned on, and tuned in, and Josh couldn't summarily reject anything that postponed his inexorable progress towards going insane with worry. Besides, the broadcast featured his boss – who also happened to be his national leader and the most powerful man in the world. Plus, Josh had nothing else to do _except_ pace, and worry. His anxious attention remained focused here, but he did glance up at the screen every once in a while.

Back home, inside the country's most famous and most tightly-defended residence, the First Lady of the United States followed along with everyone else. Abigail Bartlet, though, possessed a viewpoint totally unique from everyone else. She did not know all of the strategic pros and cons regarding military action against those who had dared to attack American citizens, or all of the _political_ pros and cons entangling such action. What she did know, better than any other person alive, was the heart of the man trapped in this hurricane: the man bombarded by conflicting demands from both home and abroad, the man upon whom the ultimate decision – and the final verdict of history – would rest. She recognized his public appearance this evening as camouflage for the hard work, the sleepless nights and the soul-crushing choices… hoping that said appearance would provide the respite her husband so sorely needed before he had to pronounce those world-critical judgments. So she sat, and watched, and smiled. She also knew how hard he'd practiced for tonight. No matter how old they both became, she would forever adore this growing boy of hers.

Certainly Jed Bartlet himself didn't look like he regretted the decision to be present on Opening Day – even though he'd never done it before, even though he'd never expressed a desire to do it before, even though he was mourning the death of a personal friend and worried over the survival of a close employee, even though he had Congress and Joint Chiefs and best friends trying to talk him into a course of violent retribution that he most definitely did not want to take. There was a hint of enthusiasm in his stance as he revolved back towards home plate. Or perhaps he too was remembering how his practice throws had improved while his mood had deteriorated, as though political dilemma had been a positive distraction from self-consciousness. Here and now, before the eyes of the entire nation, he'd probably embrace any help that would guarantee success in such a public forum.

In the tunnel, at the bottom of the steps, Leo Charlie and Ron all fidgeted… each for different reasons.

Leo was still seething – and pained – over this recent, bitter and never before experienced estrangement between him and his oldest friend. They had always trusted each other, always listened to each other… but for reasons Leo could not quite identify, ever since that car blew up in Israel Bartlet had refused to commit himself to the hard choices. Compounding this personal conflict was Leo's worry over the latest monkey wrench that had just been tossed into their twine-and-duct tape effort to preserve American foreign policy and American _citizens_ without starting World War III in the process.

Charlie shifted sideways, but because the Grand Entrance was almost directly behind home plate, and because he stood at the bottom of the steps leading up onto the field, he now saw that he wouldn't get the best view from here after all. Of course he'd see the pitch replayed for the rest of the night and into tomorrow, especially if it tanked. It was the interaction after the pitch that had him worried. If Bartlet threw a strike, his closest aide would be his best audience for some well-earned bragging rights, and that could go on for hours or days. If he threw a ball, Charlie wouldn't have to say a word: his boss would know _exactly _what he was thinking.

Ron didn't care – technically – whether this became a political boon or a political flub. Considering his genuine liking for his protectee, he could share the personal hope that the pitch was clean. That, however, would mean prolonging their stay here quite a bit longer, since Bartlet would then go over to shake hands with every ball player around and accept the accolades he'd justly deserve. Ron never liked open-air occasions like this. But he couldn't prevent them all, so he settled for doing his utmost to ensure they went off safely.

The moment had arrived: no time left for the President's right-hand man to dwell on how much damage had been done to a friendship founded over thirty years ago, or for the President's body man to wish he'd headed into the stands at once to enjoy a better view, or for the President's chief of security to wish he'd vetoed this whole stunt from the get-go. They all had to live with their choices for the present.

The catcher waited politely, crouched behind home plate, mask off, glove in position. The two teams of ball players were lined up in front of their respective dugouts, at full attention; they would be treated to an executive receiving line after the pitch, before the game actually started. The team managers and umpires flanked them, and a small phalanx of Secret Service agents flanked _them_.

The two camera operators angled a bit further back, so that they could better capture the entire pitch. There was no one else on the diamond, so as not to detract from the moment. But that didn't stop necks from craning and eyes from avidly observing…

The gathered fans, the lone announcer, the two commentators, even the traffic in the city streets beyond seemed to hush in sweet anticipation…

Without the unnecessary drama of most of his predecessors, the President checked his grip on the ball, reared back as easily as though he did this all the time, and let fly.

In the most natural instinct imaginable, every eye present followed that swift motion: the arm as it came down and confidently released the ball – and the speeding missile bound straight for home plate. And every member of that eager audience heard the _CRACK_ of impact as the ball slammed squarely into the catcher's mitt.

Several things happened at once:

_"Strike!"_ Harry shouted gleefully into his microphone.

The entire crowd endorsed this with a blast of joyous sound.

Ron snapped to full attention. "That was a _SHOT!"_

No matter how fast the pitch and how automatic the impulse to follow it, almost everyone swung back to the pitcher immediately afterwards. And what they saw –

_"My GOD –!"_ June's voice reverberated over the airwaves. There was absolutely no triumph in that cry; it couldn't be anything but an alarm.

The President of the United States was not standing tall, smiling, basking in his victory. The President of the United States was lying flat on the ground, face up, limbs slack.

He could not have simply lost his balance with the force of his throw and fallen over; if so, he would be scrambling back up as fast as possible. No – he was spread-eagled, sprawled across the mound as though pinned in place by all those huge stadium lights and all those eyes. And he was _not moving_.

The entire world froze solid for one endless fracture in time. Those fans watching televisions found themselves leaning far forward, staring at this inconceivable picture. Those listening to radios were alerted just as instantly to the chilling fact that _something _had happened, that spectacle had become crisis. Many turned up the volume; others simply dashed for the nearest TV.

The spectators in the stands remained riveted to their seats, as yet unable to process this lightning switch from triumphant pitcher to supine body. Even the catcher didn't move a muscle, still holding the perfect pitch in his extended glove.

Leo's simmering anger instantly evaporated.

Charlie's left arm went limp, slowly spilling the executive coat and waistcoat to the floor.

C.J.'s cheer cut off short.

Toby's scowling expression went dreadfully blank.

Debbie's brows descended into a disbelieving glower of her own.

Margaret's head yanked up from her paperwork to stare at her radio.

Carol and the support staff solidified right at the start of a victory dance.

Will was so startled that both hands slammed onto his desktop.

Josh whipped towards the elevated TV so fast that he nearly fell over.

Abbey gasped, her sudden loss of breath almost strangling her.

The entire world shared one electrifying thought:

_What happened?_

_IS HE ALIVE?_

Not one of them knew the answer.

Ron bolted forward at a dead run.

The agents already on the field followed his lead at once.

No matter where the President was or what situation he was in, at _any_ sign of trouble the Secret Service would instantly be all over him in a hoard, surrounding him, burying him under their own bodies if need be, protecting him any way they possibly could.

The regulation distance between the plate and the mound is sixty feet. In Oriole Park, the distance between the plate and the Grand Entrance was almost exactly the same. The team dugouts flanked the entrance on both sides. That came to about forty yards of open space, in a straight line, from all three angles.

The world record for the hundred-meter dash is a shade under ten seconds. A person in good shape and with desperation for a spur can certainly cover less than half that distance in less than half that time. Secret Service agents were not only in prime physical condition, they were supremely devoted to their job. Theirs was the Fifth Profession: the guardians of life. And there were none better.

Ball players had to have swift reflexes, too. A handful from both teams bolted just as suddenly at the sight, but with no clear purpose; they bumped and jostled wildly, and two agents had to literally shove them out of the way.

Devotion and loyalty formed the backbone of Leo's psyche as well. He let out a wordless yell that conveyed all the horror a best friend could possibly feel, and charged straight after the Special Agent in Charge. He could not have cared less about any risk to himself; in fact, he never even thought of it.

Fortunately, someone else did. Several agents remained in the tunnel, staying behind to guard their retreat. One grabbed two fistfuls of the Chief of Staff's coat and physically hauled him back into the corridor. That was another aspect of the job assigned to this branch of the Treasury Department: to protect the _second_ most powerful man in the country as well.

Leo didn't even have time to fight for his freedom. A sudden, thundering volley of gunfire detonated right outside the tunnel, spitting up sod and ricocheting off the stonework at the head of the stairs. If the agent hadn't acted so forcefully, the Chief of Staff would have been sliced to ribbons.

Seven men were already out in the open with no protection at all. No sooner had they exploded into sight or left the back wall than the bullets began to fly. Anyone with experience in weapons fire and time to evaluate it would have judged that the weapon currently in use was fully automatic, capable of firing more than three hundred lethal rounds per minute. These people were the best-trained and best-organized bodyguards in the world, but they were still human – and therefore mortal. Plus, two agents had been delayed – only for a second, but even one second can be critical. Both were hit and downed before they got more than five steps or even knew what had happened.

The others got the message at once and started zigzagging their strides, trying frantically to dodge bullets that they could neither see nor anticipate, but they didn't stop or fall back. Their overwhelming concern was to get to their protectee; their one bleak hope, to _physically_ shield him from further shots. However, under such lethal circumstances, forty yards seemed like a mile and five seconds like forever. They were converging from three different angles, at high speed, but they were running directly into a merciless sheet of bullets that had no intention of letting them pass.

The Secret Service issued an ultra-light body-stocking, capable of absorbing some shots if they were not too heavy a caliber; but no agents wore full body armor – that would slow them down too much, as in just such an instant as this. Unfortunately, speed couldn't save them here either. Within another heartbeat and a half, three more men crumpled to the ground in a hideous tangle of useless limbs.

Despite this appalling body count, the two survivors maintained their course. In comparison to the President, their lives meant nothing. They were dead-set on protecting him from the same deadly barrage – and from the shooter that had already struck him down. That had been a single shot before, at the moment of the pitch; more than enough to kill, but a lot easier to survive. Just _maybe_ he was still alive. So long as there was any doubt at all, they would do whatever it took to defend him. If just _one_ of them could get there and shelter him from further injury, they wouldn't consider their price in blood too high.

They challenged the withering fire with their very lives. Ron accelerated even more, using his own adrenaline to enhance his abilities. He didn't have time to think or feel. Like everyone who makes it into this supremely-intense line of work, much less onto this highest-ranking detail, he had been trained to react instantly with everything he had. Any sense of fear wasn't for himself: it was for his protectee. His colleague was still a precious few yards ahead, coming in fast from the right. Surely _one_ of them would make it –

A sliver of an instant later Ron almost ran down the wide-eyed catcher, who had started to run himself, and in his panic hadn't realized that he was heading right _into_ the murderous hailstorm. The senior agent slammed full into him, knocked him flying and, hopefully, tossed him out of the line of fire as well. The hard impact also threw Ron out of stride, making him stagger. But his path was clear again, his destination less than twenty short yards and four eternal seconds away –

Then a bolt of lightning smashed one leg out from under him. He nose-dived with brutal force onto the short-trimmed turf.

That left only one man still running. But the single _CRACK_ that now resounded throughout the stadium instantly established three things. There were _two_ guns: one a single-shot rifle that hit the President, and one a fully-automatic submachine gun that cut down his would-be protectors. The rifle was providing additional cover, proclaiming the killers' determination that _no one_ would reach Bartlet's side. And the rifleman was _very_ good, even with moving targets: his lone round contacted the agent's head perfectly. The body crash-landed in a boneless heap… barely six feet from the man he had given his life to save.

With the fall of the last defender, all semblance of control vaporized. Climbing over each other in their mad haste, the ball teams dove for shelter in the dugouts or raced for the change-room doors. The umpires were right on their heels.

The final score to this act was bestowed upon the pair of handheld camera operatives near the first base line and – for the moment – not actually part of ground zero. But they were not nearly far enough away for comfort. In unison, they threw aside their equipment and sprinted crazily for the maintenance machinery entrance deep in right field.

Apparently satisfied with this unconditional success, the very echoes of detonated gunpowder fell silent. That expended gunpowder had certainly accomplished its purpose: to bring down the most powerful man in the world _and_ to isolate him from everyone else.

**TBC…**


	2. Chapter 2

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 2 **

It would not be realistic to expect dead silence from forty-eight thousand people who had just witnessed such a massacre. Even so, the very horror of it, the total unexpectedness, the earth-shaking repercussions to come, and certainly the savage mercilessness of this sudden conflagration engulfing their national leader, overwhelmed almost every individual present. The crowd entity, which began with the cheers of exuberance, which then gave way to the yells of astonishment, which in turn were supplanted by the murderous rattle of gunfire, which were further augmented by the shrieks of terror, reached its final expression with the harsh dawn of knowledge – a brutal understanding that froze the heart and paralyzed the brain.

In situations such as this, the _mob_ rules. Individuality, already compromised by team loyalty, a near-fanaticism for the game and the sheer spectacle of the modern, bloodless combat it represents, becomes totally supplanted and replaced by an almost mindless group consciousness that follows no rules but its own. In an instant, forty-eight thousand stunned minds became one frightened, cornered animal.

When the overt motion and deafening noise on the field finally ceased, the spectators collectively seemed to accept that as permission for _them_ to be still also – for a moment to give in to the stupor of shock. Then the screaming began: one long ululation of fear that continued despite the need for breath, a multitude of voices fused into one, roar building upon roar until there was neither beginning nor end to it.

Horror begets terror.

Terror begets panic.

With panic comes the need for survival. Any animal will flee the predator when it hunts, escape the trap if it can, sacrifice a limb if need be to complete what instinct had begun. There is no thinking cruelty in the act: only the driving compulsion to escape. To _live_.

This new animal surged as one for the exits. Personal belongings were dropped; strangers were shoved aside. Family members and friends spun and shouted, bucking the tide to locate each other in this living, surging ocean… but to the vast majority it was every man for himself. The sacrifice of its myriad limbs had no relevance to the Darwinian equation for simple survival. Escape became paramount.

Mounted at various locations throughout the complex, the cameras – so integral a part of the stadium and the news machine that not using them never entered into consideration – panned across the execution field and threw their images up on the giant screen for the witnesses, the TV stations, and all the world to see. Nine men lay flat upon the brilliantly lit grass like broken and abandoned puppets.

Only a few figures shifted, and those few in obvious pain. The body of the mound was not one of them.

"Someone… just gunned down the President's entire security team." June's shaky whisper skittered across the wires and confirmed what everyone else either knew or guessed.

"And that can only mean that _he_ was shot as well." Harry's hoarse agreement destroyed all hope of any other possibility.

Whether at work or play, people around the country and in a lot of other nations as well dropped _everything_. They gathered around the bar, drinks forgotten; they abandoned dinner plates and newspapers and computers and reports; they phoned family members and told them to turn the TV on; they phoned friends and confirmed with each other that what they were seeing was real. This was a national event that touched every last one of them – in different ways, to be sure, but none escaped unscathed.

Leo barely noticed the iron grasp on both arms that refused to let him go to his friend.

Charlie lunged forward in a silent frenzy, and was just as efficiently restrained.

In the West Wing, C.J. squeezed both eyes shut to blot out the unthinkable.

Toby's hands opened convulsively, dropping his ball.

Debbie shook her head slowly, trying to deny the evidence.

Margaret clapped a hand over her mouth.

The Communications bullpen was tremblingly still.

The halls of the entire White House complex came alive with running agents.

In the OEOB, Will clenched his teeth, bracing for the inevitable.

In his medical waiting room, Josh just stood there with eyes and mouth wide open, staring at the coverage, actually forgetting about Donna for a minute.

In the Residence, all of these emotions were embodied and distilled in one person. Abbey forced air into her lungs somehow. It came right back out again, in a protest from the deepest reserves of her soul. _"No…"_

On the playing field, the lifting of Ron's head was such a slow movement that only the sharpest watchers noticed. Sprawled on his side, grass in his hair, gasping from exertion, one arm trapped underneath his torso, he struggled to re-evaluate the situation. Automatically, his free hand reached downwards to investigate the strange white-hot burning in his right thigh, while his eyes swept as much of the area as his twisted posture permitted.

The resultant stab of flame, plus the stomach-constricting sight of his fallen comrades littering the cheerful green turf, jabbed him instantly back to full alertness with a hiss of anguish both physical and emotional. In the next fragment of time, the rumble of the crowd sharpened into the staccato drumbeat of fresh gunfire, the impact of bullets on earth and concrete, and the even uglier sound of a screaming humanity.

Back in the direction Ron had come, other dark-suited figures bobbed and ducked in the wide maw of the Grand Entrance. They couldn't seriously be expected to charge out into that hell with no hope of survival or success, but they tried anyway – only to be driven back by a curtain of fire that tore up the ground in front of them, a barrier of death through which no one could pass. The threshold was choked by a cohort of grim agents, desperate to break through that blistering wall and reach…

So quickly that his leg yelped in protest, Ron wrenched his entire upper body around and squinted forward through the blinding floodlights towards the pitcher's mound.

President Josiah Bartlet remained where he had dropped. The bullet that hit him must have struck from the front, since a high-speed slug to the back would've propelled him onto his face. It also must have struck in the instant after the baseball left his hand. Ron could see his head, though not his features. There was still no motion at all.

Two yards to one side lay another body: the agent who had so nearly reached their Chief Executive – and would have, but for an extremely skillful killer. The _same_ killer.

Ron lowered his head, eyes flaming. He still had a duty to perform. His own wound would _not_ be allowed to stop him, nor would the shame at his failure and the loss of his colleagues. And once he reached his all-important destination, the assassins could shoot all they want; at least they wouldn't be able to hurt The Man any further. He carefully shifted until both hands were planted under his shoulders and his left leg was bent, ready to push off. He waited one more protracted heartbeat, expecting gunfire and quite likely sudden death in the next second… took a deep breath… and shoved upwards, planning a fast scramble and a frantic dive across that intervening space.

The answering fusillade attacked at once, as feared. Surprisingly, though, it was not aimed at him. Also, it wasn't the automatic fire, fast and widespread and indiscriminating – but the sniperfire, slow and deliberate and aimed to perfection.

It ripped into grass and dirt less than ten feet from the leader of the free world.

Ron got the message and flattened back down, his rush aborted almost before it had begun.

He didn't just stay still, however, and he had no thought of giving up. In the same motion, he whipped out his handgun and scanned the nearest bleachers for the muzzle-flash that would pinpoint the enemy's location. Tremors of pain rippling up his nerves, making his aim quiver; still, if he could spot _anything_ to shoot at he'd chance it –

He saw no flash at all, but he was promptly splattered by flying bits of earth and lawn as the invisible weapon continued to speak. One precise shot after another, with a brief yet distinct pause of deadly intent and cool calculation between, its bullets danced their lethal way even closer to the body of his principle protectee. His _unmoving_ protectee.

Again Ron took the hint, loud and clear. He lowered his gun, then tossed it gently to one side, beyond easy reach. He had been given no possible alternative. Sure enough, the pointed single shots ceased to fly.

The message was unmistakable: this close and no closer. Or else.

Even if he couldn't fight with his own two hands at this furious moment, he could still lead the battle with strategy. Keeping his head low, Ron spoke urgently into the microphone up his sleeve, transmitting to every agent on the payroll. "All units, stay off the field!"

No answer. Only indistinguishable shouting on every side. The crowds continued to swirl and scream… but nothing came over the Secret Service's two-way lifeline.

That couldn't _be!_ The shooters couldn't have killed every single bodyguard in the entire stadium! But why else would they be silent?

Ice slithered through him. Was he really alone, not only trapped in this war zone but without any backup at all?

Just like the President?

No – he could see a few of his colleagues hovering in the door of the tunnel. So why couldn't he _hear_ them?

Then Ron checked his earpiece, and that chilling unease gave way to a dash of relief. The tiny device had fallen out, most likely after his collision with the ground. Re-inserting it put him back in touch with the greatest security organization in the world. Physically he was still separated from them, but the really crucial link had been restored.

He overrode the instant bombardment of multiple demands for information. "Everyone stay back! One more move forward from _anybody_ and they'll chop him right up!"

In the Grand Entrance, that order truncated all such attempts to reach their chief _or_ their national leader. Every inch of the baseball field was spot-lit and devoid of any conceivable cover. Anyone who dared take a step into the open had no chance of being missed by a professional marksman – but more to the point, such an effort would unleash a final assault upon the central target.

That target bore a hideous resemblance to a paper image tacked to a wall… or a firing squad victim bound to a post. Completely unable to duck.

The worst question of all was: even if he _could_ dodge, how could he still be alive to even try? The _first_ assault had already done its job!

The sports announcers, who provided commentary and play-by-play over the wires, needed an excellent vantage point, hence their glass-fronted booth high in the stands above home plate. The stadium media producer, who controlled the mechanics of both TV and radio coverage, ran everything from an electronics-crammed office buried deep in the lower recesses of the complex. His safety at least was never in doubt.

"One – stay on Bartlet no matter what! Two – wide-angle on the diamond and behind! Three and Four – pan the crowds! All of you, hold your positions if at all possible!"

He adjusted his headset and flipped switches nonstop, eyes flicking constantly over the bank of monitors before him, rotating the different camera views that would appear both on the jumbo screen and on the TV broadcast, striving to include every bit of action and information possible. He embodied the pragmatism of all people involved in public media: no matter who got hurt, he had a job to get the news out.

Two cameras he did not include in this essential loop: the one inside the commentators' booth itself… and the one lying flat on the outfield, aimed at a blank wall.

The abandoned still camera almost certainly contained the last photos of Jed Bartlet's life. The discarded video camera had already transmitted its live feed of the same… could it really be less than two minutes ago? The producer did not pause to roll the playback; things were happening far too quickly out there right now. Later would come time to examine the trajectory information. That – and the emotional impact – would have to wait for the President's inquest.

The TV viewers had an enormous advantage tonight: they could follow the action visually as well. The radio listeners had only sound: just the announcers' voices, plus whatever the stadium's sound system picked up as well. As a rule this was enough – a swift and concise play-by-play, punctuated by umpire calls and overlaid by the cheering crowds, can often be even more exciting when one has to picture the action oneself. But now… with the official commentary sporadic and terse and far less descriptive than normal, interspersed with teeth-grinding silence and echoes of _gunfire_…

Not too surprisingly, cars and trucks in almost every state of the Union pulled over to the side of the road, no matter where they were. So what if a driver was en route to an appointment or in the midst of a tightly-scheduled transport haul? How could a delay matter when their President lay _dying?_ Besides, human nature being what it is, tragedy can be riveting. This way they could cling to the action and follow the history without risking their _own_ lives – unlike the spectators who had bought tickets to the game.

Right now, the action was still on the field and in play. One player in particular was far from being out.

"Seal the exits!" His partners had probably already begun that step, but Ron took no chances. "Get a police ring around the whole stadium! We need more manpower _inside_, too!"

_"Proceeding,"_ came the prompt, reassuring confirmation.

Sweating, breathing hard and trying not to wince at every pulse of pain, Ron concentrated next on clearing the field of the wounded. He had to coordinate everything else as well, but this task could hardly be delegated; he was closest. He pivoted away from his President, towards his fellow casualties. "Any of you who can move, hitch yourselves back towards the exit. You –" he pointed at the ashen-faced catcher, who clutched the turf in both fists that still shook "– do the same. They have no reason to go after you."

The only ballplayer in the game scuttled backwards faster than a crab, drew no fire, leapt to his feet and sprang for cover. He launched himself head-first into the nearer dugout, careless of his landing, and his huddled teammates made room for him at once.

"Okay, at least the catcher is off the field and safe!" In the broadcast booth, Harry fought to keep his voice level and concise. He couldn't preserve _total_ calm, but he did find some sanctuary in doing his job: reporting the details to the public. "All other players have taken cover as well. Some of the agents who were shot are now crawling towards shelter. They're obviously badly hit, but at least the gunmen in the stands are permitting this retreat. And that way they'll get treatment for their injuries."

"Some _aren't_ retreating." June followed her partner's lead. Both commentators worked in TV _and_ radio media; they knew how to give brief yet descriptive explanations, and the radio listeners out there had no link to events except through this channel. The pair also knew that every word they said was being picked up. "Some aren't moving at all. They _have_ to be dead." Now she wavered. "Just like _him_…"

One figure _was_ moving, ever so carefully, as he watched his comrades creep off the field of battle. However, Ron didn't observe this orderly if painful withdrawal for long. Nor did he take part in it. He had no intention whatsoever of getting further away from the man he would give his life to defend, and at the moment his proximity was being tolerated. He kept raking the stands with narrowed eyes for the merest clue to where that lethal fire had originated, and issuing orders with impressive focus. It was the only chance they had.

"_Two_ shooters: one sniper, one fully auto. I don't see any muzzle-flashes, but they have to be in the stands. Can't anyone else spot them? A surge in the crowd – _anything!_"

_"Nothing yet,"_ came the transmitted reply.

"Well, hurry up! This guy has already proven that he's good enough to take a head shot on a _moving_ target! Plus, he's got a buddy to back him up!"

The Secret Service was in a horrid predicament: damned if they did try to help the President, and damned if they didn't. He was just too far away and too exposed for them to prevent any of this. Their worst-case scenario had become inescapable reality.

_"The vest!"_ an agent exclaimed over the security frequency, professionalism understandably jarred. The President had strapped tightly-woven layers of bulletproof Kevlar under his sports jacket before leaving the tunnel; they'd never have let him out here otherwise.

"Two words," Ron grated back, as though the two words he was about to utter burned in his gut like acid. _"Armor piercing."_

The general public knew about such devastating ammunition – commonly referred to as _cop killers_. No sniper of any appreciable skill would fail to stock up on it. No "bulletproof" vest could withstand it.

No sniper victim would survive it.

_"Signs of life from Eagle?"_ another voice inquired, with admirable self-control. Even so, the prayer could not be missed: _please say yes._

For one long, uncharacteristic pause, Ron couldn't answer.

"No."

It was the hardest word he'd ever had to say.

Leo couldn't hear that single word over a channel to which he did not have access, but the short headshake of the agent who still held his arm said it all. The Chief of Staff swayed on his feet, broadsided by a pain beyond description. All of this was made many times worse by the memory of the heated argument with his best friend mere seconds before that best friend stepped out into the field and the gun sights. He had wasted their very last minutes together with _anger_. He had openly opposed the leader and the man who always relied so heavily upon him. He had been afraid that if he didn't counsel Bartlet correctly, it would be the end of Bartlet's political life – never dreaming that instead he would behold the end of Bartlet's _physical _life. His breath released in a spiraling grief, and he reverted to a form of address that no one other than the First Couple had heard him use in over five years before today. A name, transformed into a piteous lament. _"Jed…"_

Charlie's mocha skin had paled to an alarming gray. Again he charged forward, crazed with the horror, blind to the danger, conscious only of the _need_ of the leader he not only knew personally but idolized. He had often been instructed about not losing his head in a crisis, not for loyalty or anything else, but his dedication remained too strong for training and procedures to mean much at a time like this. He had forced his way through a wall of agents when someone fired upon the White House the previous spring, because he couldn't bear to be other than absolutely _positive_ that his boss was okay. Surely he could do no less now, when he knew damned well that his boss _wasn't_ okay. But tonight they weren't in the already-secured bastion of the West Wing; this time the agents had no intention of letting _anyone_ pass. Not only would the President's personal aide die for certain if he did obey his howling instincts, but the President was already far beyond any aid his body man could provide.

C.J. couldn't stand it any longer; if her heart shriveled one more micron it would cease to function altogether. _She_ had arranged this public event. _She_ had sent her boss, her leader, her friend out there to be slaughtered. Logic had no sway here; she felt almost as responsible for his death as whoever pulled the trigger. She whirled from the heart-rending TV scene and the mind-crushing guilt, tore out of her office and raced for another office two doors down – to the friend whom she knew was the closest, the most solid, the most reliable.

Toby was already on his feet, as though expecting her… or as though on the verge of a similar rush in the opposite direction. All the fury he'd felt for those who would gamble with world instability and foul up an international peace initiative was transferred to the monster who had just shattered his leader's existence. Yet even that bone-deep rage could not overcome the soul-destroying loss, the irreparable damage already done. He said nothing, just met her agonized look with his own, and in that silence shared all the fear, all the pain, all the sorrow.

From Leo McGarry's office, Margaret dashed straight through the empty Oval Office, taking the shortest distance regardless of the sanctity of the route – and pulled up hard in front of Debbie's desk. All she'd had, up until this moment, was her radio, with no visual accompaniment at all. The stomach-twisting scene on Debbie's TV slammed into her brain and jammed her to a halt. The secretary to the President rose at once, came over to the assistant to the Chief of Staff, and put a gentle arm around her shaking shoulders.

No one in the Communications bullpen thought about leaving, or even about moving. It was as if their minds had fused, so that they could share thoughts and strength, for only together could they hope to live through this greatest of calamities. Nothing but the knowledge that all of them _were_ together, that all of them felt exactly the same, kept them from going to pieces on the spot. They would cling to each other, support each other, guide and be guided through the utter destruction of their world.

Across the street and in a separate political world, his attention never leaving the sports coverage that had just become world history, Will absently picked up his phone… and then he put it back down unused. No Secret Service agents had run into his office or his boss's office next door, or anywhere else in the OEOB. The Vice President was out of town. His bodyguards would already know what had happened, and would be taking all the steps needed to protect the heir to the American Presidency. No phone call was necessary. This administration would have a new leader yet again – so soon after the last upheaval, too – and for an even more horrible reason. However much Will regretted that reason, he would shortly be working for the President of the United States once more. But until Russell returned, Will was of no earthly use. He might as well sit still and watch, and suffer through undistracted, along with everyone else he'd come to know and like.

Josh was almost literally drowning in the nightmare unleashed on another continent. No matter how far away, it had reached out and seized him by the throat in an unbreakable grip. He could turn from the TV's display, but not from the terrifying truth. He took two staggering steps towards the exit, his instincts screeching at him to return _now._ Then he braked, a different set of instincts ordering him to stay. He'd never get to Washington in time to make any conceivable difference… but he could make a big difference to Donna. She was still alive, and in the skilled hands of first-rate surgeons. When she awoke afterwards, she would urgently need a friend: to be there for her, _and_ to break the tragedy to her before she heard it from the removed German staff or the emotionless talking heads. His colleagues needed him, sure – but his assistant would need him even more.

In a crisis, Secret Service agents could not afford to think about modesty or privacy. They blasted into the First Family's private sitting-room, constrained to safeguard the wife of the President. Once they arrived, however, they all stopped short. They could protect her from physical attack, but not from spiritual desolation. Abbey sat motionless, oblivious to everything in the world save the vivid broadcast before her. She didn't blink; she barely breathed. Her face was paper-white and her petite stature seemed genuinely shrunken. If she did somehow endure through the events of tonight, it would be only as a shadow of her former vibrant being – a shadow cruelly separated from the one she loved as part of _herself_. These past two minutes had leeched away her very life.

On her television – on _all_ televisions – the omnipresent cameras focused on that dead-still figure stretched across the pitcher's mound. Barely a handful of yards to one side, another figure slumped face down, every bit as lifeless.

Just past home plate lay a third body… and this one was _not_.

_"Ron, your status?"_ asked a voice in his ear.

For the first time, Ron thought to examine his own condition, though it required almost a physical effort to drag his attention from the motionless form less than fifty-five feet away. He probed cautiously, finding one deceptively-small tear in trouser material almost dead-center to the quadriceps muscle, and a large patch of warm dampness spreading slowly out from it. He kept that leg still, to avoid increasing a guaranteed blood loss and compounding a possible fracture, much less aggravating the agony… A moment later he discovered the exit wound, bleeding nicely as well. The bullet had passed clean through, sparing the femur itself.

That meant he could walk on it if he really had to.

"I'm great. Toss me a couple of Band-Aids." His anger, hardly damped by either the natural concern or the relief of this self-diagnosis, returned tenfold. The only thing worse than failure was powerlessness to prevent _more_ failure.

_"So get yourself out of there!"_

"Forget _that_." Two words, three syllables, one absolutely inflexible will. "Will you _find_ those killers and take them out!"

_"No luck so far. The stands are too dark. Still no muzzle-flashes."_

"In a crowd like this a short burst of powder might be hard to spot. If we get them to start firing again, any chance you can home in on the sound?"

None of the listeners commented on the glaring problem behind this proposal. Stimulating fresh gunfire would cost even more lives among their ranks, since it would be their job to leave the shelter of the Grand Entrance… and it wouldn't offer the slightest help to their Chief Executive, whose existence was already a thing of the past.

Even so, they had to do _something!_

_"Not likely,"_ came the blunt reply. _"The echoes bounce all over this park. Lousy acoustics. All the yelling doesn't help, either –"_

Before that thought could even be completed, there _was _a new battery of automatic weapons fire. But the agents hadn't stirred it up, intentionally or _un_intentionally. And this time there was no frightful chewing up of clods of earth across the lawn. Yet where else on earth could the bullets be aimed?

The response from the broadcast booth was instantaneous and heartfelt.

"Holy Toledo!" Harry exclaimed first, his voice climbing.

June's was right behind him. "The gunman is_ shooting into the crowd!"_

That stark announcement electrified the TV viewers, but mercifully it was not shunted through the stadium's public address system. Otherwise, the panic, already boiling over, would have multiplied exponentially. When a crush of several thousand in close quarters starts to stampede, it can't be stopped, and there is no control and no safety. By definition, a _stampede _is the joint reaction of a large number united into a single entity by a common impulse… for example, to escape the predator. Push that entity past its limits, and the equation becomes far more dire and far more dangerous.

Some spectators had not yet realized the supreme danger created by the stampede itself, and others had managed to keep their heads with the desperate hope that they were not being personally shot at. Then again, most had begun to flee as soon as the first barrage had decimated the Secret Service, and mob mentality is every bit as contagious as panic. Granted, in so massive a crowd no one could really know if there were any casualties or how many; still, each person would assume instinctively that he or she was in danger and react accordingly. Survival on this level belonged to the fittest, and _fit _meant leaving the slower behind to placate the hunter.

There was enough light in the bleachers to pick one's way to one's seat; presumably that would also be enough to spot a large black rifle in the immediate vicinity.

"_Find_ them!" Ron shouted into his microphone. He knew he shouldn't do anything to draw attention to himself, or else the gunmen might guess that he was taking an active role in combating this act of war – or, God forbid, actually in charge of the opposition – but his blood was well and truly up now. As awful as assault to his protectee always was, and the deaths of his partners to boot, he raged at the suffering of the innocents just because they happened to be in the way. "Watch for where the people are scattering!"

_"They're ALL scattering!"_ came the harried reply, almost drowned out by another spate of rapid fire overhead.

"They're not stupid," he muttered. "The scatter-gun isn't in the quadrant closest to home plate, since it can shoot straight down the tunnel. But that's where the sniper _has_ to be, because Eagle was facing that way when _he_ was hit!"

That left pretty much the entire ballpark, but Ron had nothing more specific to offer. He also had no other option to pursue at this critical moment. The shooters' lethalness had drastically shifted the Secret Service's avowed priorities: from protection to arrest. It had also guaranteed that anyone who stepped over the tunnel threshold would be dead.

And The Man _was_ dead.

"Get the police to evac the people!" Ron tried hard to look in all directions at once, despite his low profile, despite the flames that gripped his leg with merciless teeth. He didn't bother to comment on the technical challenge of moving almost fifty thousand people in a disorderly rush; his colleagues already knew.

_"Ambulances are en route –"_ one agent reported.

_"We can't screen every single person before we let them go,"_ a second pointed out. _"That'd cause even more of a crush!"_

So they had to risk letting the killers escape for the sake of a relatively swift and safe evacuation, or else be thorough and vastly increase the danger to the civilians. One dilemma on top of another.

"Can you tell if he's shooting _above_ the crowd, or _into_ it?" Ron demanded.

_"Not one hundred per cent sure…"_

If the gunman was _that_ heartless, then the casualty count would be staggering. There was sure to be a legion of injuries regardless, if only the usual contusions inevitable in a panic. If one had to add bullet wounds to the tally…

_"No flash anywhere!" _said yet another voice. _"Could they have flash suppressors?"_

"Anything's possible by now; these guys are pros." Ron ground his teeth, further infuriated by his inability to leap up and lead the search himself – or, vastly more important, get the President to safety ten minutes _ago!_

_"Why are they sticking around in the first place? They nailed their mark – they should be running for the hills!"_

Ron already had an answer for that: the only one that made any modicum of sense… and the one that scared them all the most. "Fanatics. Would-be martyrs. Madmen."

The assassins hadn't finished their bloody mission just yet. They must've known that their chances of escape were already non-existent. They wanted to make a public scene and a public statement, and they were willing to kill indiscriminately to do both – as if striking down the President wasn't enough to guarantee the undivided attention of the whole world.

They wanted him dead _and_ on display. And they wanted the credit.

_"Wait – I think I see a crowd surge! Section H-23!"_

"You'll be fighting the surge yourselves," Ron reminded his partners. "But then, so will the gunman!"

_"Right on both counts; this is panic city!"_

Glancing about, Ron saw a mass movement of similar proportion in several other sections as well. Those echoing thunderclaps of gunfire not only played havoc with the Service's homing efforts, but they also made it a whole lot easier for every spectator to believe that the weapon was very close to his or her location. More and more people were trying to run, and would be trampling each other in the process.

The one good piece of news for Jed Bartlet himself was that, in terms of the panic _only_, he happened to be in the safest spot around. Lying lifelessly in the center of the almost-deserted diamond, he ran little risk of being crushed.

Ron strained to spot his own operatives among the dimly-lit masses, no matter how useless the exercise. They were up there somewhere, over thirty in number, well-armed and thoroughly motivated. "Concentrate on the upper decks," he advised. "They offer the best line of fire!"

More gunfire – this time accompanied by the eerie whine of lead ricocheting off stone. Ron jerked about, just in time to see dark shapes in the mouth of the Grand Entrance drop flat and chips of concrete fly heavenward. Some of his colleagues must have decided on a rush in the hope that the killer with the assault weapon was too busy shooting elsewhere to notice. They were right in that the retaliation hadn't been machine-gun fire, but wrong in that they might have gone unnoticed: this single shot had come from the sniper instead. Both killers were on the job full-time, sharing the targets, and experts at their trade. And they were _moving,_ slipping through the stands and the crowds to adjust their lines of fire and dodge their pursuers.

One saving grace was that sniper fire, for all its pinpoint precision, still meant fewer bullets per second. Also, whichever shots hit a cement wall missed a human target. That provided rather cold comfort, though. The only direction from which direct assistance could come was the tunnel, and everyone there remained pinned down.

Ron did catch another mote of good news: the three agents who had followed him into this No-Man's Land, and who had so far survived, and who had undertaken to creep away and get their wounds attended to, were no longer in sight. They, at least, had made it to safety.

Safety being relative, even the reporters cowering behind their window far above the battlefield couldn't help but be caught up in the growing mindset of the group animal they observed below. Panic _is _contagious, and the herding instinct of fellow creatures striving to survive will overrun any and all pretense towards sentience.

"Bullets are still flying all over the place. Why doesn't the Secret Service _do_ something?" Harry complained, oblivious to the fact that his mike was still hot and transmitting.

"You said it – bullets are flying. I doubt they can see much; _we_ sure can't! The people are stampeding! Some of them will be trampled for sure!" More aware than her colleague that they were still on the air, June attempted to maintain _some_ professional decorum.

"Good Lord – there are women and children in that chaos!"

June pressed her face against the glass to get a better field of view. "And walkers! And wheelchairs! This is _insanity!_"

Harry spun on her sharply. "Hey, keep _down!_"

"What? We owe it to the public to report what's going on! You don't think we're at least a bit protected up here?"

"You bet your _life?_"

"Okay, fair point! But still, why would they want to shoot at us or anyone else now?" Horror choked her up anew. "They've accomplished their goal!"

A pair of riflemen appeared briefly on the roof of the commentators' booth, silhouetted against the silver moon, helmeted and goggled, scanning the bleachers below. The Service always had its own sharpshooters on duty whenever the President so much as stepped outside. However, even their super-sophisticated scopes would have a hell of a time finding two small targets in a panic-stricken sea of humanity at night, and they would naturally hesitate to shoot too fast with such a huge risk of hitting a bystander.

Surely there could not be a worse combination of factors: a security breach, an assassination attempt, crowd control in a place with few exits, the shooters still at large… and they couldn't even get to their leader to protect him!

In fact, they had already failed him. Spectacularly.

**TBC…**


	3. Chapter 3

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 3 **

In an absurd and horrific fashion, the entire baseball field resembled a tableau in a theater. The man globally acknowledged to be the most powerful individual on earth was the centerpiece, like always – but never before in _this_ manner: utterly power_less_, flat on his spine, unmoving, in a huge open area, alone and completely unprotected.

It was a shocking sight: the murdered President laid out as though on his bier before national television and the entire globe. The cameras, still running, still transmitting, were merciless. It was the most public assassination in U.S. history, if not _world_ history, every second of it captured in perfect detail and exquisite agony. It was a monstrous blow to a nation's identity, and to the human hope for a peaceful existence _anywhere_. And what made it all the more awful? No one could even recover the body, and no one could bring down the assassins who were still present, still shooting.

The only other individuals in the same open field were five black-suited bodyguards, strewn over forty yards like discarded toys, from just past the team dugouts to just short of the mound, prostrate and making no effort to crawl away. Of those five, one had no intention of leaving, one had no strength to try… and three were beyond the attempt.

Movement could be seen in the mouth of the Grand Entrance, but no one emerged to try his luck as a target in the shooting gallery. Those individuals now included several ambulance attendants, who had responded to the emergency from outside. Already they had provided initial treatment and removal of the wounded agents who made it to cover, but they must have been deeply dismayed to learn that they couldn't go to the aid of the other casualties _out there_ – although they certainly understood why. The sound of sporadic gunfire overhead and the corpses on the grass made clear what would happen if anyone tried.

Movement could be seen _everywhere_ in the stands, as people tried to run for cover, blindly seeking safety in any form at all. They surged to and fro like a tide, each gunshot sending them careening in another direction. Birds, bait fish and even some of the larger mammals react in an identical manner: the individual subsumed into the group.

Scurrying among them was a small army of the finest security operatives in the world, and another battalion of local police, all engaged in the most desperate of search missions. Somewhere _else_ among them were two hidden killers, periodically blasting their firearms at the sky and who knew what else or _who_ else. The fixed seats offered both questionable shelter from seeking bullets and formidable barriers preventing a straight run to the exits – or to the enemies' suspected locations.

The crowds screamed in confusion, fear and pain; the radios blared with instructions and responses and calls for assistance; the sportscasters babbled with ever-increasing anxiety; the airwaves sizzled with repeated updates to this unbelievable night. And yet, for a certain few individuals – some present, some not – a peculiar pause took hold, settling over their minds like the slow fall of dust when a bloody battle was over… and lost.

These people handled this most unusual interlude to this most appalling evening with one thing in common: silence. The man physically nearest to their Commander-in-Chief rested his forehead on his right forearm, a vivid expression of his all-encompassing failure. This was far worse than the Newseum; this time he could do nothing except lie here and let his protectee die, after leading his colleagues forth to die as well. And _he'd_ allowed his protectee to step out here in the first place.

A gray, middle-aged man stood in a dark concrete tunnel, trembling from barely-suppressed sobs, no longer resisting the bodyguard who had held him back. In fact he relied upon that grasp just to stay upright. All of the strength that he had selflessly devoted to another – a friend, a commander, an inspiration – had died out there on that killing field. Nothing in his world could really matter ever again.

A much younger man, not long out of his teens, stood nearby in that same tunnel, and in a similar mental state. He had been released from a second bodyguard's restrictive hold, but made no move to take advantage of it. He had lost more than an employer and more than a leader; he had lost a mentor and a substitute father. He just bowed his head and closed his eyes. There was nothing else to be done.

A man and a woman stood together in a small though influential office, staring at the TV yet hardly seeing it anymore. He loomed slightly behind her, his left hand gripping her left upper arm; she leaned into him, her right hand resting on top of his left hand in turn. There was little comfort possible at such a terrible time, but they seized that tiny bit with all they had, for without it they would lose their sanity. Her eyes were wet; his were blinking.

Two women stood in a simple-looking reception area, side by side, a brunette and a redhead, likewise watching the news with more dullness than interest. Later, they knew, would recommence the slow grind of national business that not even disaster could derail. It had to be done, because _not_ doing it would be even worse than the disaster itself. The work would feel useless, and pointless, yet – in a masochistic sense – almost welcome. _Anything_ to occupy their minds and draw their memories away from what they were witnessing now.

A thick crowd stood in an open space before a solid wall of TV sets, as motionless as so many statues. Perhaps they found some meager consolation in the presence of similar bereaved individuals; no one tried to break the spell. Breaking it meant that they would have to _live_ it, and the thought of such intense pain was simply unendurable. Most were still too aghast to shed any tears. That would come soon enough.

A young man in his late thirties stood alone in a roomy, well-appointed office, also watching the broadcast. He was hardly less engulfed by this blackness of the soul than all the others, though he had no one with whom to share it. Like them, he was stunned to silence and frozen to attention. One should not sit in the presence of death – and certainly not the death of a dedicated, caring, courageous leader… and of a last hope for peace in the most volatile cauldron that the human race had ever produced.

Another man of similar age stood in a hospital waiting room. Despite the organized urgency on the other side of the door behind him, and many other people elsewhere in this very large, very busy building, this small space granted solitude. Only his uneven respiration intruded upon the quivering silence. He knew firsthand the greatness, the kindness, the brilliance that had just been cruelly snuffed out like a precious candle… and he knew firsthand the torture of a tiny leaden missile to the chest. He might almost have given thanks for such a clean death this time – if not for the devastation that would surely follow.

A middle-aged woman sat rigid on a couch, not moving a hair, no longer even looking at the TV screen, dark eyes frighteningly empty. Two men and two women stood behind her in this luxurious private chamber, and more armed guards were stationed right outside – but, regardless of their presence, she was alone. Alone in a way that no one else could truly comprehend… unless one had witnessed the murder of a spouse that completed one's heart.

And through it all, the televisions and the radios continued to broadcast relentlessly, offering no solace at all to a global village that had been wounded dreadfully – perhaps fatally – and that could do nothing whatsoever about it.

Not everyone in the country, or even everyone in this stadium, considered themselves a personal Bartlet supporter… but that didn't change the fact that he had been duly elected to lead them. His office represented national unity and international respect. He was an integral part of the American psyche, and he was gone.

What eulogy could conceivably suffice for such a man, such a husband, such a friend, such a President?

"_What_ the –" Only at the last second did Harry think to consider what the FCC might say about his choice of language on the air.

June's volume remained low. Loudness wasn't needed anyway; her words carried over the station channel just as clearly.

_"Look at him."_

Still prone on the turf, Ron noticed the very same thing at the very same time. He probably didn't plan to transmit his own reaction, even though his comrades needed to know. Fortunately, the sensitive mike picked it up anyway.

"Sir?"

Of all the staff and players in the ballpark, only the umpires were regularly wired into the stadium's sound system. One of them had dug into the Yankees' dugout, but not so deep that he couldn't sneak a peek now and then, and he happened to behold the exact same sight. He'd shown considerable restraint of voice thus far, regardless of the gunfire and the death and the panic, but he cut loose now with a yell that reverberated over all of Camden Yards.

_"He's MOVING!"_

"He" could not apply to anyone else. All eyes in the tunnel, and not a few in the stands, leaped instantly to the big screen. TV viewers had a head start.

The camera trained on the pitcher's mound all along had naturally garnered the most time on that huge display due to the colossal impact of its executive close-up – before, _and after_. Now, thanks to the commentators' discovery and the producer's coordination, it immortalized the view of Jed Bartlet's left arm slowly rising, in a gentle arc, hand open, as though to block the bright, hot lights from his face.

Not only was it improbable for a corpse to make such a move, and unlikely for a corpse to care, but the motion was so easy, so normal, that one just could not believe it to be the final convulsive muscle twitch before a body died completely.

Leo's jaw dropped and he stumbled forward, his wiry frame hauled along behind his spinning mind. The bodyguard nearest to him was for once even more off-balance; Leo might actually have made it out onto the field unopposed this time if his tottering legs could've borne him that far. They couldn't; he stopped at the bottom of the stairs, still gaping.

Charlie staggered sideways, banging into the stone wall and almost sliding right down to the ground. His eyes looked ready to fall out of his head; his hands shook like those of a man four times his age. He too might have managed to escape his guardian agent at last, but neither energy nor conscious thought were to be had.

C.J. and Toby both jumped so sharply that they broke apart, stopping when almost a foot separated them, swaying like twin trees in the same high wind. Neither noticed the other; both had eyes only for the broadcast.

Debbie and Margaret clutched at each other's arms, as though convinced that they would fall over without this mutual shoring-up – or that this new information simply could _not_ be true without the tangible presence of a fellow witness.

Exclamations of pure disbelief broke out all over Communications. Some, like Carol, extended open palms as if to beg for an instant explanation to the miraculous. Others couldn't even process what they saw; either they didn't move at all, or else they folded at the knees in an abrupt loss of strength.

Will leaned forward until both hands obtained a firm foundation on the surface of his desk; otherwise he might well have landed on all fours on his own carpet. Lamplight glinted off his eyeglasses like silver question marks.

Josh's head tilted sideways, and his limbs twitched spasmodically, for all the world like a mannequin with an incompetent puppeteer on the strings. That might not be an unsuitable comparison, either: he had no more control over his movements _or_ his thoughts right now than he had over the events unrolling across the Atlantic.

Abbey's virtual paralysis shattered with a violent start and a harsh gasp. It looked scarily like the sudden convulsion when a patient in cardiac arrest is jolted by a defibulator's electric charge, something she herself had done many times in her medical career. It served the exact same purpose, too: to shock priceless life back into a dying shell.

All around the world, viewers who had started to mourn sprang forward with expressions of amazement and joy; viewers who had started to celebrate gave vent to amazement and disappointment; and viewers who were decidedly indifferent felt no more than amazed. That at least was one emotion shared by all in this hour.

Throughout Oriole Park, many people could not be distracted from fleeing for their lives by _anything_, but some did screech to a halt. Even bullets overhead had a hard time overcoming the magnetism of a return from the dead – and by their national leader, no less. They simply had to stop and see for themselves. Some sentience returned; some individual reality reawakened. For a moment even the safety that might be found in flight was forgotten.

Scattered among these crowds, the Secret Service operatives had been well trained to deal with the best _and_ the worst, yet they could not completely sterilize their hearts. They, too, simply had to pause and confirm with their own eyes the news that transcended all hope. Plus, their lives were dedicated to _his_ life. If he still lived against all calculable odds, then they hadn't failed him. Yet.

Somewhere else in this stadium, two wielders of lethal weapons and even more lethal intent received glaring evidence that their painstaking Grand Plan – whatever it might be – hadn't been completed just yet. The man they had shot with such precision and such public impact was refusing to die.

Stretched out on the Maryland Bluegrass, closer than anyone else to this astonishing revelation, Ron could scarcely make his brain comprehend what his eyes insisted was true. The President of the United States was alive, and turning his way.

_God… what happened…_

An inch at a time, Bartlet rolled over onto his right side, emitting a groan which, due to a perceptive drop in the pervading roar of primal terror, could be heard twenty yards away. Was it pure chance that he happened to roll down the mound's slight elevation rather than up it, or was his brain already back in command, figuring out the path of least resistance? Either way, he ended up facing his chief bodyguard and the Grand Entrance almost directly – meaning that they could see him, and he could see them.

Ron spotted one special detail immediately: the badge of the Presidential Seal, colorfully embroidered on the sports jacket's left breast, showed a neat black hole just off-center. The sniper had aimed for a perfect kill, and nailed it dead-on.

Except that… somehow he hadn't.

The only possible explanation was that the round had been a regular full metal jacket, the kind the vest _could_ stop – not the tissue-shredding, armor-penetrating caliber that the Service had naturally assumed. With ammo that lethal, vest or no vest, Jed Bartlet would never move again. Instead, he was bruised and groggy and bleary-eyed and very much alive.

Who could blame anyone for jumping to such an obvious conclusion – even the finest bodyguards in the world? A direct hit from a high-powered rifle bullet to packed Kevlar right over the rib cage was certainly capable of knocking a man down and knocking him _out._ The victim's total immobility for several minutes gave no one any reason to believe that he was unconscious rather than dead. Besides, none of his defenders had been allowed close enough to judge his vitality for themselves.

Most snipers shooting over any appreciable distance would not attempt a head shot. The human cranium is astonishingly resilient, and people have survived glancing blows even from close range. Almost always, a head shot that doesn't kill on the spot permits a total or near-total recovery, with scarcely an inch of difference between those two options. The sure method is to go for center mass: the trunk. It's a larger target and a much softer one, and if the bullet doesn't kill the trauma often does. That was the only reason Ron had not insisted upon a helmet for the President as well.

The vest was a perfectly logical precaution for the most influential and the most at-risk person in the world. Most professional assassins would figure that out, and take appropriate steps to make sure of the kill. Armor-piercing bullets were regrettably simple to obtain on the open market. Why hadn't the sniper used one after all?

Either because he _wasn't_ a professional – which was unbelievable given his demonstrated skill – or because he _didn't_ want to kill the President.

Why in God's name _not? _What other purpose could lie behind such an attack?

Conclusion: the President was more valuable alive. And trapped.

Now that everyone _knew_ Bartlet was alive, rather than assuming he wasn't, two opposite reactions were guaranteed and immediate. Agents boiled out of the Grand Entrance, more desperate than ever to protect him since he wasn't beyond needing that protection after all. Just maybe _one_ of them could cross those forty yards before the killers recovered. All they required was one man draping his own body over their leader, and they could ensure his ongoing safety while they hunted the enemy down.

Answering gunfire exploded at almost the same instant. Having apparently counted on their target's remarkable imperviousness to bullets from the start, the shooters had accomplished the near-impossible and isolated him from all aid. There would be no point in allowing his rescue now.

The result of both reactions was just as certain and just as swift. Bullets ripped into earth and smashed into stone. Men braked short, tumbled to the ground or ducked back under cover. It was a horribly one-sided contest: blood versus bullets. Ron watched more of his comrades fall, and raged that they _still_ couldn't secure their protectee – just as their protectee had proven to all of them that he wasn't dead yet.

The thunder of war resumed had its predictable effect on the crowds as well: with fresh shrieks and renewed flight. Barely suppressed, the newly born animal surged once again to the fore and took control. Sentience, so vaunted and arrogantly treasured, became so much chaff before the winds of panic.

It also gained another witness: the one person who had been oblivious to all of this from the start… until now. No one who had ever heard gunfire firsthand, much less been hit by it himself, could fail to recognize that heart-stopping sound. It wiped away all confusion, answered all questions, crystallized all thought.

_No – not again –_

Electrified by the roiling tension in the air, the din and fury of the crowd, and by memories of another May night four years ago, Bartlet lurched to his knees. His right arm took root in the dirt to brace his weight; his left arm pressed against his chest as though to guard damaged ribs – which was probably the case. He breathed hard, his features were strained, and his eyes squinted against both the bright lights he couldn't help but see and the speeding missiles he knew he wouldn't see. It was a most natural response – not by a strategist, but by a previous victim of ballistic violence.

Six feet away lay one of the bodyguards he knew personally – obviously past all help. Beyond that lay his _chief _bodyguard, bleeding visibly into the green lawn. Beyond that lay one more groaning protector and two more motionless ones.

Up until this moment, all he had known for sure was that he'd been hit by something, _hard. _Waking up in the midst of such chaos was disorienting, to say the least. Now understanding dawned – as much as there could be, considering what he'd missed thus far. The camera caught the vivid change to his expression: from confusion, fear and physical anguish to comprehension, anger and _emotional_ anguish.

He was alive – and he was exposed to the greatest danger, with no protection at all. Surrounded by dreadful evidence of what happened to those who tried to run.

Everywhere in the White House complex – from Toby's office to the Oval Office reception area to the Communications bullpen to the Residence – and in a chamber in the OEOB, and in a certain German hospital, people started to live again themselves. They lived for sheer relief and supreme joy, because their leader lived after they were all so sure he _didn't_… and they lived for agonizing suspense and clutching terror, because their leader's renewed existence still hung in a very tenuous balance.

For the observers in the stadium's Grand Entrance, those same reasons to live were felt even more acutely, because here they were close enough to actually help him – if only they _could._

Leo tried. Agents and gunshots be damned; he cared only to stand by his oldest and dearest friend. This time he fought his way up the half-dozen steps and right to the corridor mouth –

_"NO!"_

That shout, faint yet clear, did not come from behind him, but from in front. It came from the pitcher's mound. It was enough to startle Leo to a halt.

Still braced like a tripod, Bartlet raised his left hand like a traffic cop, palm out. "_Don't_ come out here, _any_ of you!"

Everyone in the tunnel entrance heard his voice, even over the clamor of the stands. They also heard him grunt from the effort to bellow around what had to be more than one badly injured rib at the least. But he refused to let that prevent him from preventing others from dying here tonight. He did not want anyone else to be hit in a well-established futile attempt to reach him.

Leo looked like he was prepared to brave the guns, the bullets, and the wrath of his President altogether, but by then the remaining agents reached him and hauled him back. No sooner had they dissolved into the protective shadows of the tunnel than a new shape emerged: younger, darker and no less dedicated.

Fortunately Bartlet saw him in time as well. He glared at his body man with all of his strength, and shook his head in the clearest possible meaning.

Charlie hesitated, just as torn between obedience and loyalty. Then, slowly, he nodded in solemn assent. He did not retreat all the way down the stairs – and unlike the Chief of Staff, no one felt the need to get a personal aide out of sight. He stayed right there, as close as was permitted, ready to do whatever he could the _instant_ he could.

This time, when Bartlet again shook his head, the gesture contained a large dose of ruefulness. He well knew the high quality of his people, had seen them channel it many times.

_Never expected to have to tell them NOT to use it…_

When one thinks about it, a President's job in its purest essence is to serve the people of his country. Never mind the possible cost to himself, in political enemies or in _physical_ enemies. He has to protect them – from anything he can, any way he can.

Surely no one had ever seen such a poignant example of service as this… nor at such a personal risk.

The only living person even more proximate to the President and also in a condition to think clearly, Ron witnessed all of this with no small wonder. Said wonder spiked dramatically as the President proceeded to stand.

_"Stay down!_" Even though it was almost subsumed by the sound of a new fusillade of shots erupting across the stands, and the inevitable accompanying screams, no one could mistake the explosive urgency of Ron's tone. The Special Agent in Charge of White House Security – which meant executive security as well – was one of very few people authorized to issue a direct order to his own supreme commander, and he didn't hesitate to do so when the need arose. Nor did he hesitate to discard formality and deference in a life-threatening situation.

In defiance of all regulations and common sense, Bartlet paid his most experienced bodyguard no attention at all. He ignored the shouted pleas from several directions for him not to run such a ludicrous risk, he ignored the pain that squeezed his chest like an iron fist, he ignored the lethal danger hovering on all sides and breathing right down his neck. No one, not bloodthirsty assassins nor concerned friends nor even Ron Butterfield, could deter him when his mind was set.

Ron struggled to rise himself, struggled to ignore the devouring pain in his leg. If he could just cross those twenty yards and tackle The Man before –

In lightning succession, three _CRACKS_ and three _WHIPS_ rang out, tallying perfectly with three clumps of sod ripped apart about halfway up the pitch. Ron subsided before that sniper fire edged any closer to the mound, and the man crouched on it.

Bartlet froze in place, naturally enough. For one second.

"Hold _still!_" Ron yelled at him. "Or else one of those near-misses _won't!_"

Few others could hear him, but everyone got the idea just fine. Many in the crowd let out a collective moan of fear that they were about to see their President die all over again.

_I never did like being ordered around. Or threatened, for that matter._

Many times past their President had followed his heart and done the exact opposite of what was expected of him, or what was prudent. Why should this be any different? Slowly, he pushed up from the bullet-torn grass with one hand. Weakly, he swayed, and then achieved some balance. Resolutely, he drew himself upright.

"He's really alive!" In the commentators' booth, June beamed at Harry, who beamed back in equal gigantic delight.

Leo leaned forward as far as the restraining arms would allow.

Charlie gripped the edge of the tunnel's doorless jamb.

Toby exhaled explosively, releasing both air and pain. C.J. nodded her voiceless, wholehearted agreement.

"He's _alive?_" Debbie couldn't yet overcome her pervading bemusement. Margaret felt the very same way.

Carol led the cheer in Communications: _"He's alive!"_

Will could only whisper one word: "Unbelievable."

Josh couldn't even make that much sound.

Abbey could, and did. It came out like a prayer. "Alive…"

**TBC…**


	4. Chapter 4

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 4 **

He was alone, and he was brilliantly lit – the perfect target. His chest heaved from the effort to straighten, from the effort just to stand, and from the impact of a high-velocity bullet to a fibrous vest only a few centimeters thick, and from bruising to tissue and breakage to bones, and from the sudden tumble to the unyielding ground. His back was powdered by the dust of the pitcher's mound. His hair was somewhat tousled, a digression from his usual public image. His face was flushed and beaded with perspiration, due to exertion and suffering and the humid night under these huge, hot floodlights. His mouth was open, struggling for air after having it driven so savagely from his lungs, as though he actually needed to remember how to breathe all over again.

In ridiculous contrast, the open collar of his blue shirt was unmarred, his trousers retained their sharp crease, and his shoes hadn't lost their shine. His arms remained at his sides, rather than curling protectively around the thoracic pain he had to be feeling.

His expression was furious.

Time seemed to solidify and wait, for an hour or a millennium, allowing him to stand there undisturbed, unchallenged. On the contrary, _he_ did the challenging. Only his head turned, just a few degrees – not the complete, easy rotation as when he had first gained this mound, a lifetime ago, but the similarity was unavoidable. He swept the stadium's closest bleachers once again: this time not with a smile and a wave, but with fists clenched and eyes blazing. In that snapshot of time, he dared the gunmen or anyone else to come at him face to face, if they had the guts to take him on when he knew they were there.

For viewers who were observant enough, the camera picked up that small hole in the stitched Seal, _so_ close to his heart. The vest stopped the slug, but not the actual impact of sheer velocity. He almost certainly had a broken rib, maybe two. Still, far better such bruises or even breaks to the alternative…

There is no dignity in being slammed onto one's back in full public view. Just standing there, not making a move towards safety, defying injury and danger both, Jed Bartlet recovered every bit of that poise inherent to his nature and his status, and wrapped it around himself as though it were a mantle of his office… or a cloak of invulnerability.

Between the loss of consciousness and the lack of electronic communications, video or audio, he was more isolated than anyone else – before you even factored in the empty space separating him from safety.

_High time I found out exactly what's going on._

Less than a ball's throw away, Ron stared up at this pillar of strength and anger and determination. Always before _he'd_ had the height advantage. Now, for the first time, the presence of his protectee towered over him literally as well.

_"ATTENTION, AMERICA!"_

The voice trumpeted throughout Camden Yards like a clap of thunder. It seemed to come from all directions at once. The high walls of the bleaches caught the crashing echoes and threw them back into the interior. Every soul that could move jerked around, seeking the source of this totally unexpected broadcast.

It also echoed over the networks, sharp and tinny and totally unlike the sportscasters' style. Every soul tuning in felt no lesser surprise.

June made the connection first. "The PA system! But how –"

Several enormous speakers crowned the uppermost level of the stands, spread out and aimed into the field, designed to carry umpire rulings to the fans _and_ the airwaves.

Harry leaped to the only workable explanation. "They've got one of our headsets!"

Who "they" were could not have been more obvious. The gunmen had acquired a forty-eight-thousand-strong captive audience, to say nothing of all those millions tuning in long-distance. Now, they had a statement to make… and they had planned from square one the best way to make it: using their hosts' own electronic setup to broadcast to the world.

_"BE QUIET, AND LISTEN."_

Even many of the frenzied spectators obeyed, their overall hubbub momentarily subsiding to a dull murmur. Nine-tenths of them at least were still stuck between rows of seats; this ballpark couldn't disgorge a capacity crowd in a hurry, much less in a panic. And now they were about to hear why this nightmare had happened… and what horror would happen next. It was enough to make anyone stop and pay attention.

Ron wasn't the only agent suddenly growling into his sleeve mike.

_"NOBODY LEAVES HERE. ANYONE WHO TRIES, DIES."_

Of course the gunmen didn't want the fans evacuated; they wanted the thickest crowd possible in which to hide. At least that meant they'd been shooting _over_ the crowd all along, rather than into it, since dead bodies or even crippled casualties would reduce the size of their living shield and also serve as landmarks to their position. Therefore, there shouldn't be any bullet injuries in the stands.

Not _yet_ – but a truly terrified person might easily obey the irresistible instinct to run, too scared to think that doing so vastly increased his or her danger.

_"WE'VE GOT YOUR PRESIDENT…"_

Bartlet's head lifted higher and his brows descended further, a clear declaration of what he thought about _that_ fact. He didn't revolve, didn't search futilely for the speaker that he knew he couldn't see. He remained near the mound, center stage, pinned by spotlights and gun sights, the only person standing on the entire field, waiting in teeth-gritted silence and enraged helplessness to learn his fate.

Everyone else – from his best friend and his body man in the tunnel, to his staff members in the West Wing, to his political affiliate in the OEOB, to his staff member in a German hospital, to his wife in their private chambers, to his fellow citizens across the country, to his fellow human beings around the world – waited just as helplessly with him.

_"WE CHOSE NOT TO KILL HIM BEFORE. BUT WE CAN KILL HIM AT ANY MOMENT."_

_This,_ then, was what they had wanted all along: a live hostage instead of a dead one. A hostage they could threaten with impunity, a hostage without even the warm bodies of his own guards to shield him. So long as they kept the President on the field and the Secret Service _off_ the field, they remained in control of the situation.

Not for one instant did anyone still believe that the vest would save its wearer from a _real _attempt. No armor-penetrating ammo was needed. Shots to the lower abdomen or the arteries in arms and legs would kill just as surely in the end, and a lot more slowly – serving their purpose even better.

Or… the sniper just might go for a straight-up head shot after all. He'd already pulled it off once.

_"ONE WRONG MOVE, AND HE DIES NEXT."_

"They're going to blackmail the United States," June whispered, her low tone a stark counterpoint to the reverberating volume right outside. She found the presence of mind from somewhere to put a hand over her mike first. Her wire channel didn't include the speakers over the stands, but she was reluctant to give the killers even this small addition to their worldwide broadcast.

Harry felt the same bleak conviction… and he, too, kept this part of their coverage to themselves. "And they're going to get clean away with –"

The camera in the commentators' booth was still turned off, but the TV and radio stations all heard the door bang open and a new presence burst inside.

"Turn off the public address," a masculine voice ordered with deceptive quietness.

The announcers froze for two hammering heartbeats at this apparition in black, sporting a gigantic assault rifle and a cold stare.

_"Now!"_

The truth snapped into focus: he couldn't be one of the blackmailers if he was trying to stifle the blackmail demand. Therefore, he was one of the good guys.

Besides, who argues with armament like that?

Harry reached for the console first. "Greg – kill the PA!"

The producer, in his den far below, needed no explanation.

_"HERE'S THE DEAL. WE –"_

Silence – as sudden and shocking as the first shrill announcement had been.

Many witnesses imagined the astonishment, and then the snarl of fury, as two men realized that they had been deprived of their freedom of speech.

Many witnesses also exhaled in relief. If the killers couldn't make their demands known, they had far less power over the lives around them.

But not _no_ power…

"Secure the entire sound system!" Ron ordered into his transmitter. "The perps might try to take over the controls directly – or they might have some other idea for tapping into it!"

His fellow agents scrambled faster than ever. It meant spreading their numbers even thinner to include the commentators' booth and the basement control room, but there was no telling what their maddened foes would do in retaliation.

The crowd of fans hesitated, caught squarely between the compulsion to flee and the need to see what consequences would arise next.

"So _that's _your game, is it?"

Whatever anyone might have guessed, it could not have equaled this. The President of the United States was dealing himself into the hand.

Only the very closest individuals could actually hear him: the fallen agents who still lived, the people crammed into the mouth of the Grand Entrance and the players huddled in the dugouts. But even without the giant billboard display everyone could see him, head up and posture stiff – shouting right back at the men who were so heartless as to kill him and anyone around him.

"You think you can get your way just like this?"

"Hey – the President's saying something!" Harry exclaimed. Disregarding his own advice to his colleague earlier, he pressed his face against the booth glass.

June did a double-take. "Who's he talking to? The shooters? He can't seriously think they'll hear him!"

"By now he's probably too mad to care."

Bartlet looked _exactly_ that mad: his brows had lowered into one ominous line and his eyes were steel-hard.

"Don't antagonize them!" Ron commanded. Almost certainly the assassins couldn't hear this executive speech, but they'd guess that this speech was aimed at them and in no way complimentary.

The Man didn't even glance his way. Only his head moved, rotating slowly to face the third of the stands arrayed before him. "You think we'd just roll over and give up?"

Leo ground his jaws. "Shut up, shut _up…_"

Charlie said nothing, as an aide should, but his whole attitude endorsed the opinion.

C.J. waved both arms. "What's he _saying? _It's so unnatural not to hear him!"

Toby rolled his eyes. "And of course he can't sit back and be quiet."

Debbie shook her head worriedly. "He's going to get _himself_ killed in one more minute."

Margaret had no possible rejoinder to that.

Carol whipped around to face the bullpen at large. "Anybody here read lips?"

Will knew about speeches, and when _not_ to make them. "Not now, sir, _not now!_"

Josh just stared at the extraordinary sight of his ultra-eloquent leader deprived of volume.

Abbey closed her eyes in a brief yet familiar exasperation; this was just so like him. But there remained a minor issue of the current crisis to consider… "Jed, _please_ –"

"If only we knew what he was saying!" June lamented.

Her wish seemed to trigger something; Harry positively jumped. "_Wait_ a sec – the directional microphones!"

June's face lit up at this inspiration. "Right _on!_" She pounced on the media console. "Greg! Get every directional in the park aimed at the President! But keep the headsets offline!"

The producer leaped to comply. None of them asked whether this was an idea that the Secret Service would likely permit. For once they weren't driven by the insatiable demand for news coverage of every angle – but by sheer human interest. Their Commander-in-Chief was out there alone, waging the battle of his life _for_ his life. Of course they wanted to follow along.

Their Commander-in-Chief was just getting warmed up. "You think we'd negotiate with the likes of _you?_"

This time he _did_ get a reaction. A grassy tuft suddenly kicked itself into the air right in front of him, as though some giant lying under the sod had spit a chunk of dirt out from between its teeth. The instantaneous explosion of gunpowder erased all doubt as to the actual cause.

He flinched sharply. So would anyone else. In fact, so _did_ a lot of people nowhere near him – in pure empathy to the close shave and the murderous warning. The crowd gasped…

… and then they subsided. Waiting to see what he would do in return

Straightening, Bartlet cast a grim eye over his more immediate surroundings. Ron glared back – fiercely trying to dissuade him from whatever move he was planning to make. The only other living agent around was too badly hit to pay attention to anything else.

The President couldn't see the face of the bodyguard lying six short feet away, but he _could_ see the sickening crimson stain on the beautiful green lawn, right under the head, silently screaming its proof of extraordinary expertise.

He was easy prey. If his enemies did decide to kill him, he could do absolutely nothing to prevent it.

If they thought that threat would make him yield, they didn't know him at all.

_"FINE!"_

To the amazement of just about everyone, this time _his_ voice boomed from the jumbo speakers and rang out over the entire stadium. And the media stations.

"Yeah!" said Harry.

"We did it!" said June.

"What in the _world_ –" said more than one agent, and more than one spectator in the stands, and more than one broadcast subscriber.

Jed Bartlet also noticed the unheralded, thousand-times amplification of his own words. Before, he'd been blowing off steam, knowing his assailants couldn't hear him, wishing that they could. Now he hesitated for just an instant, reassessing what he really wanted to say. This time he would be heard. Now he could make his point in spades.

_"You want our answer to your demands, whatever they are? HERE IT IS."_

Everyone fastened on him, more completely even than normal for just being who he was. What did he intend to _do?_

He turned from the stands to the field. To the bodies on the grass, to the small white spot of home plate, and to the dark maw of the Grand Entrance beyond.

Firmed his features. Drew a slow, deep breath.

And made his choice.

"I – don't – believe – this." To the acute aggravation of all the radio listeners, Harry's incredulity would not let him be more articulate. Fortunately, June managed to find more descriptive words.

"He's _walking!_"

He was indeed: one deliberate stride at a time. Leaving the mound and the center-point of this vicious drama, if not the spotlight. Moving closer to the protection of Secret Service guns and solid stone walls. Stepping out across this bullet-pocked, blood-soaked lawn… fully aware that his own blood could all too easily water it as well in one more second.

Thanks to battered and perhaps broken ribs, he probably couldn't run if he tried. He certainly couldn't run faster than his enemies could shoot. On the other hand, if he didn't get under cover soon, he'd be dead anyway; denied their demands, the gunmen had every reason to vent their frustration on him. This slow, measured march declared his complete understanding of the danger, and his refusal to submit to it. They could still kill him – or maim him – but they could not cow him. He'd rather be shot down for rejecting their ultimatum than be used as barter to achieve their ruthless goals.

_I'll live AND die MY way. I won't let them take everything from me._

His stride was hardly relaxed and carefree; every muscle must have been either bruised or tensed. Any instant now he'd learn just what these unidentified guerillas thought about his bold rejection of everything they stood for. And they were guaranteed to express themselves with violence.

He accepted that. If the price for neutralizing their threat to his country was his life… then so be it.

_I… WE will not kneel._

His best friend, his body man, his senior staffers, his support staffers, his former staffer, his absent staffer, his wife… every last one of them was struck dumb by pure astonishment. He'd made many independent moves before in his political career, not a few of them qualifying as rash, but this _had_ to take the cake.

Some of the spectators in the stands actually cheered their President on, yelling at him to run, to get to safety – balanced between terror that he could still die right in front of them and pride at his determination to defy all the odds stacked against him. The viewers at home probably felt no different; this was happening live on national TV. They were _there_ with him as well.

Ron snarled audibly and started to push himself up, prepared to express _his_ view of this insanity with all the vehemence of which he was capable –

The gunmen did it for him, and with even more impact. The automatic weapon shattered the oh-so-brief mood of triumph, letting loose one sustained discharge of its lethal machine-gun fire. Bullets lashed out in a long straight line, sending geysers of earth and grass skyward every foot of the way. They began at roughly the midpoint between third and home, far enough away that everyone could and _did_ follow along, and laid down their rattling, murderous track straight for first – right across Bartlet's path. He braked, guarding his face from the bombardment of dirt and turf and the sheet of flame that screamed past less than twenty feet in front of him.

A nation of hearts leaped into corresponding throats. Many observers yanked away, unable to bear the sight they fully expected: their President torn apart as though by a buzz saw and crumpling to the ground to stay.

"He's all right!" June cried joyously, unashamed to share that joy with the world – but then she stopped in chilling realization. "For the moment, at least…"

"They shot wide," Harry gloomily informed both her _and_ their anxious listeners. "It was just a warning."

_"Just?"_

Ron peered up from under shielding arms; that barrage had passed not much more than twenty feet from _him _as well. His protectee still stood, blessedly unhurt. The shots hadn't come thatclose, really; the gunman was counting on the power of fear. The whine of hot lead _anywhere_ nearby more than sufficed to induce paralysis. The sheer volume of fully-automatic fire usually did the rest: just one of those swarming slugs could kill, and several of them could strike in lightning succession, literally tearing a person apart. With rounds blasting so fast on such a visible track, a marksman can redirect his aim and drag it onto even a moving target…

The senior agent darted a look towards the stands near the third base line, where the shooter had to be. He didn't need to radio out; every other operative would have concluded the same thing and rushed to surround that area before their quarry could slip back into the crowds.

Bartlet followed his chief bodyguard's vision, and gave a short nod, making the same deduction. He shook out his sleeves and ran a hand through his hair, as though in protest of the pelting trash tossed his way. Then he faced forward again, his attention returning to the route laid still out before him. It looked more endless and more perilous than ever.

On the big screen, everyone saw his eyes narrow definitively.

_No quarter – from them OR from me._

"Oh my soul, he's going on!" Harry's pitch climbed the scale, gathering a bit of feedback from his mike as counterpoint.

June had abandoned her composure as well. "I've never seen anything so brave in my entire life!"

It was either brave or reckless or stubborn or suicidal, depending upon the person asked. It had required a lot of nerve to step forward the first time; it required even more nerve to start again after giving ground to a threat like _that_. The next attempt might all too likely _not_ stop at a scare, especially since scaring didn't appear to work. Despite all of this, the President squared up, set his jaw, tipped his head forward and glowered from under dark brows in a gesture his friends and family recognized as single-minded Bartlet purpose… and silently resumed his calculated advance. Towards safety, and life, the preservation of his office, and the stability of the nation.

Ron spoke into his mike without taking his eyes off The Man walking his way. "_Find_ those killers before this escalates even more!" He didn't have to postulate what an escalation would likely involve.

"_Run!_" Charlie shouted, completely forgetting his place in the hierarchy and responding only to his instincts. He had lost his mother to violence already…

"No, _don't _run!" Leo countered, shifting from one foot to the other, on the verge of apoplexy. His military experience knew the hopelessness of racing bullets.

"What is he trying to _prove?_" C.J. demanded frenetically to no one in particular.

"Demons and better angels," Toby grumbled by way of a curt diagnosis.

"The man has a death wish," Debbie muttered, affection warring with terror.

"Oh, he just _has _to make it!" Margaret wailed, unable to conceive of any other alternative.

"They'll never let him off the field," Will pronounced with quiet, awful certainty.

"Come on, _come on,_" Josh whispered to the unimpressed TV set.

Unknowing, Abbey encapsulated all of these thoughts into one concise verdict. _"You precious fool."_

The Secret Service in the Grand Entrance still couldn't risk rushing the pitch. If they tried, they'd be cut down exactly as before – or else the killers would go straight for Bartlet instead. It was a chance the agents dared not take so long as he remained alive. While their priority would always be the President himself, even over nailing the perpetrators, they had to _reach_ him first, and that they simply couldn't do under these conditions. They needed to take down _both_ enemy forces first.

June looked harder at the scene below. "What in the world – he's changing course!"

Harry shared her confusion. "Yes, he's swinging wide! It looks like – like he doesn't want to get too close to the bodies on the field. But _why?_ How can that matter now?"

Ron knew exactly what Bartlet had in mind: the hope that any shot meant for _him_ wouldn't hit his already wounded bodyguards instead. He preferred to increase the distance he had to travel and the risk he had to run rather than have any more lives lost to his account. The chief of security still lay prone, on an almost direct line between the Grand Entrance and the mound. The President was getting nearer – but that swerve had maintained a few extra yards between them. Ron's best hope to secure his protectee at last, himself, required very close quarters.

Suddenly, the fact that he _wasn't_ quite so close presented one glaring advantage. The machine gun opened up again, chattering furiously away with no compunction for whatever had the misfortune to enter its line of fire. A short, concentrated burst sliced up the ground barely six yards from the uncooperative executive hostage, and directly in front. Bartlet checked, closing his eyes and ducking the airborne particles. Ron was showered even more heavily. Witnesses cringed. Fresh shouting broke out on all sides.

Slowly, the President lowered his deflecting arm and re-evaluated his situation. If he stayed still, he wouldn't be shot at any more – but he'd lose the battle. If he persevered, he might win the moral point, but he wouldn't live to tell about it. Of course, when everything boiled down to the finale, he had little chance of survival anyway. What made more sense: delaying and hoping for a long-shot rescue that might not succeed… or accepting the inevitable and facing it on _his_ terms, which would make a rescue moot?

For a moment he smiled. For a moment, he shrugged.

_"Alea jacta est." Caesar was right on the money._

He collected himself and, his features locked down, took another step forward. No slower, no faster… just set on his goal. Even though _that_ warning had been hideously close, even though he still had a long distance to cover, even though any subsequent attempt to deter him had only one way to go – _up_.

Ron knew it as well. Their enemies wanted a live hostage rather than a dead one, but they'd settle for a dead trophy rather than an escaped one. They couldn't let this challenge to their dictatorial authority go unpunished any more than the President could allow them to challenge his _democratic_ authority.

The wielder of the machine gun must have lost all patience at this inexplicable obstinacy on the part of his target to reject common sense. He unleashed another barrage: at the sky, as low overhead as he dared. He didn't want to _accidentally _kill their hostage. One does not use automatic weapons for long-distance precision firing. He'd done great in thinning out bodyguards, but now…

Bartlet flinched at each drumbeat of sound. No matter how hard he braced himself, he couldn't help it. The extreme tension level didn't insulate him against that flinching, but rather heightened it all the more. He could hear the awful _whizz_ of blistering steel jackets just passing his ears, or so it seemed. He knew that they were still missing him, but not by how much, or whether they were about to _stop_ missing. What human could be immune to fear in such a scenario? Again he hesitated, weighing perseverance versus prudence. Each time he stopped made it harder to start again.

Who can say where courage comes from – the heart, the mind or the soul?The most powerful man in the world cast his lot with freedom, and set forth again.

The impulse to throw dignity to the four winds, to ignore the stabbing pains in his chest, to run with all his strength and the desire to live that was in him, surged upwards from the core of his being like bubbling lava. Probably one fact alone restrained that urge to _break:_ changing his pace now might carry him right into a bullet that was supposed to just miss.

"We've got to help him!" June insisted. "But how?"

Harry brightened. "Hey – how about if we turn off the stadium lights? Then the gunmen can't see him!"

"_Might_ work; the Secret Service will have night-vision for sure."

"But then, these killers probably thought of that too…"

"Plus, blackness would make the panic in the stands ten times worse."

"Damn."

The shooter had not only lost his patience, he'd abandoned his wariness. He had forgotten to reposition himself between assaults. A blacker-than-night shadow poised on the very roof of the commentators' booth zeroed in at last, waiting for that gun barrel to lift one more inch…

Only those people with a lot of experience in the sound of gunfire could tell that one shot at the end of the last automatic discharge _wasn't_ that weapon's final word, but had come from a totally different kind of gun. The killer might've had the skill, but he didn't have the chance. He just let his long piece of ordnance fall to the ground and sank limply into the vacant seat behind him, for all the world like a sports fan who had managed to fall asleep during the show. At long last, he'd been evicted from the game.

_"One shooter down."_ That simple report over the Secret Service channel packed more relief and grim satisfaction than words could readily convey.

However, just because one shooter had been eliminated did not mean that the President was safe – not by a long shot. Literally.

"Sir, get _over_ here!"

Without breaking stride, Bartlet turned his head and met Ron's gaze. People who know each other well can often say volumes in a single glance. Those famous blue eyes sharpened, evaluating his chief bodyguard's condition: the rumpled attire, the grass fragments, the still-spreading stain across his thigh, the damp face, the twinges of pain. Even so, the logical conclusion was that if Ron could still get mad, he couldn't be too critically hurt. Besides, Bartlet had no possible way to help him. _His _priority was to get to safety; that would free up the Secret Service to nail the gunmen and get medical aid to the wounded.

Then one eyebrow flared, a refusal to obey in the whimsical confidence that for once Ron couldn't actually make him toe that security regulations line. Besides, compliance would escalate Ron's own risk.

_And he's paid out more than enough already tonight. They all have._

Meanwhile, it dawned on a few minds present that there hadn't been a move from the _other_ half of this assassination team in several seconds –

As if in answer to the thought, a single shot screamed through the hot summer night.

This one didn't miss.

The thunderbolt jarred the President's entire body, wrenched an explosive gasp from his lips and slammed him forward onto his knees. He flung out both hands and barely avoided falling flat on his face.

In the tunnel, in the West Wing, in the OEOB, in Germany, in the Residence – and throughout the still-packed bleachers of Camden Yards, and throughout the United States – people jerked sharply as though they felt that shock themselves, and their hearts constricted at the horrific sight of their national leader falling to the ground.

"He's down!" June cried. _"The President's been hit!"_

A nation cried as one: _"NO!"_

**TBC…**


	5. Chapter 5

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 5 **

Arms braced, head hanging, for a long moment Jed Bartlet didn't move. At least, that was how he appeared to the vast majority of witnesses. Only someone very close could see his shoulders shake with the effort just to breathe.

Ron threw himself towards his protectee, disregarding his own battle wound, reaching out, determined to cross that dividing distance no matter what –

The ground geysered almost in front of his nose, stopping him short after a territorial gain of about eight inches. It was no use; any move on his part to save the President would kill him instead.

The President's only reaction to _that_ shot was a fresh shiver down his spine. Framed on all fours, at least he didn't sink any further.

"Sir!"

Slowly Bartlet raised his head, and met Ron's fiercely anguished gaze from a scant three yards away. All at once, the world seemed to contract until it contained nothing but that short stretch of turf and those two men, the only sound that of dual ragged respiration – and Ron's was only slightly the more controlled of the two.

"Are you _all right!_" Somehow the urgency in the senior agent's voice did not make it sound like a question.

Almost mechanically, his principal charge moved to find out. He lifted his right hand – an action that elicited another grunt of protest. The left-hand ribs had to be ablaze; plus, he'd taken an additional jolt when both hands landed so hard. He ignored the exacerbation of pain, pushed down with his left palm, pressing his fingertips into the earth to counter his body's slight swaying, and reached back towards his right leg.

The field was lit to almost daylight brightness; the dark trousers couldn't hide the darker stain below the knee.

The sight of blood on the man he would give his life to protect – the man he'd seen bleed once before – almost catapulted Ron off the ground. But the sniper was having none of it. Both men jerked back reflexively as the limited space separating them erupted again in a shower of mangled grass and earth. Bartlet turned his face aside and closed his eyes against the flying soil fragments, nearly losing his precarious balance in the process. The blood-painted fingers of his right hand curled into a fist.

The barrage faded, and the ominous near-quiet returned. Ron ran a sleeve across his sweat-streaked, dirt-flecked forehead. The message that he and his colleagues had already deduced – and that the President had clearly intuited as well – was coming through louder and more maliciously than ever. His proximity to the primary target, _alive,_ only served to underline the gunmen's calculated cruelty, The Man's isolation, and the agents' helplessness. They were being toyed with.

Also, if Ron tried _too_ hard, the killer could easily decide to eliminate him for good – and in that process he might hit the wrong man.

At length Bartlet reopened his eyes. "God. I used to wonder what it must be like, to come under enemy fire." His voice was hoarse, his features taut, his vision haunted. "The things I've asked of others…"

"Sir." Ron gently prodded his Commander-in-Chief out of this extraordinarily poignant introspection. "How bad is it?"

With a slight shudder, Bartlet came back to himself. They were close enough to hear each other over the swirling background surf… close enough to finally know how the other had fared in this calamity… close enough to banish the terror of loneliness, and to reduce the loneliness of terror.

"I'm fine." That had long been his standard reply to any queries about his health; he must have figured that it would not suffice this time. He double-checked his right hand: the scarlet coating wasn't extensive. "Really. He just clipped me."

The Man was no medic, and usually the casualty is the last person to draw an accurate diagnosis. Still, the wound was not bleeding heavily, and located far enough down his leg to have missed the really big blood vessels. He wouldn't bleed to death in the next handful of minutes.

The killers would probably love it if he did. He was their mouse to torture, as slowly and _showily_ as possible. Imagine his inexorably growing weakness while protection _and_ treatment hovered just out of reach? And the nation would suffer with him every step of the way.

The demands for information in Ron's ear became shrill. "Eagle's okay," he radioed out. Well, not _okay_ – but not as bad as he could be, and as they had feared. "Bullet-nick to the right calf. And some cracked ribs at least." No bullet-proof vest could absorb the entire impact of a high-powered slug; his protectee's favoring of his left side only confirmed it. Still, he hadn't manifested any difficulty breathing, and no blood spotted his lips _this_ time. All in all, a positive diagnosis. This information needed to reach a number of people fast: the First Lady and the White House Chief of Staff in particular.

Voices over the wire expressed their relief. Bartlet, though, did not. Concern graphically etched his features – the kind of concern he never felt for himself. "What about _you_, Ron?"

Four years ago to the month, the senior agent had refused to let his protectee even think about the injury to a member of his detail; the Secret Service's overriding need was to see their Chief Executive safe. Why would tonight be any different? Both of them were far less safe now than during that harrowing limo ride from Rosslyn.

Because both were under the gun together, both wounded… both unable to flee.

Ron shifted his leg carefully, with a slow wariness that was only partly from the pain. "Not too bad. It missed the bone."

"Thank the Lord for that mercy, at least." The President blinked some more in an attempt to rid his eyes of irritating particles. "One guy over there needs a doctor, too. And the others…" The wavering sigh that followed was heartfelt. This man committed himself to never growing inured to the death of his own.

Blearily, he peered towards the edge of the field. There lay the only shelter to be had. "Never thought a few yards could seem so far."

Two familiar faces peered back at him from the tunnel mouth, forbidden to climb the last few steps – which meant their faces hovered on almost the exact same level as his. The effect would have been comical, save for the periodic raking gunfire. They were just as helpless as he was, and just as anxiety-ridden. And what about all the others watching from an even greater distance, on TV, miles away?

"The yards between _us_ are what worry me." Ron juggled variables in his mind. They didn't look promising, but there _was_ a chance. "Sir, I don't want to add to your risk myself, but we're running out of options. On my signal, I need you to lunge towards me as fast as you can. Stay as _low_ as you can. I'll meet you halfway."

The bleariness vanished; those cool blue eyes appraised him with a disconcerting keenness. After an even more disconcerting pause, Bartlet spoke – his expression unreadable. "So that you can take the next bullet, right?"

"And any others out there." Ron did not shrink one iota from his intent. It was the only choice that had a hope in hell of working.

With a hole through one leg, he couldn't rise or run fast enough to do this alone – but if his protectee helped cut down the distance, he might be able to throw himself over the President before the next shot rang out.

After that…

After that, the other agents would have a lot more time to find the sniper. A human body is a very solid barrier. The Man would be comparatively safe from any further hits – even if the man covering him was dead.

Bartlet displayed no real surprise. He also exhibited no doubt as to the cost. "One problem with your plan, Ron. I'm _not_ signing your death warrant. And that plan would be tantamount to doing so."

His reply didn't come as a big surprise, either. "Thank you, Mr. President, but you don't get to make that call. We've discussed this in our briefings before. You know the drill."

"Well, here's another minor detail for that drill to consider: this is _my_ fight." A pronounced, uncharacteristic rage flashed white-hot; suddenly the leader of the free world looked downright ferocious. "And I'm going to finish it!"

Steadying himself on his right knee, he braced his left leg – in clear-cut readiness.

Not to lunge forward, but to stand up. _To carry on._

Ron could not have been taken more by surprise. "Sir, _get back down!_"

"Sorry, Ron. Miles to go before I s—" Bartlet recoiled as a solitary bullet _smacked_ between them in menacing punctuation. The sniper had also spotted his preparation for renewed resistance. It took him another moment to catch his breath. "Or maybe not."

"Mr. President –" His security chief's normally phlegmatic tone fairly trembled with suppressed frustration. Although he knew that any move closer would result in them both being cut down, he still had to dig his fingers into the turf in a physical effort to curb the tremendous urge to _try,_ to shield his protectee _now._

"I know what you're going to say. Love to, but can't." Yet Bartlet held still for the moment, seeming reluctant after all to leave his companion and enter the maelstrom once again. Stirring somewhere deep beneath the surface of conscious thought had to be the fear that this conversation might be the last human contact he would ever have.

The longer he lingered, the greater the chance that he could be persuaded. "Sir –"

One side of the President's mouth twisted up in a parody of a grin. "If I lie down now, I'm afraid I won't be able to make myself get up again."

The bald honesty, the human vulnerability in those words…

The Secret Service mandate still reigned. "Sir, I'm _ordering_ you –"

One presidential brow quirked in genuine amusement. "I hate to say this in these circumstances, Ron, but just who do you think is the boss of me?" Bartlet muttered softly at a fresh current of pain, and wrapped his left arm around his chest like a splint. Traumatized ribs did not welcome spirited conversation. A sudden thought struck and the grin became a shade lighter, even more wry. "Actually, don't answer that. It's a depressingly long list, and I've just realized I'm not even in the top three."

Ron resisted the impulse to clutch at his hair. The Secret Service had as keen an appreciation for black humor as anyone, but right now he just wished The Man would _focus_.

"Mr. President, I understand what you have in mind, but attempting to force the situation to a conclusion will serve no purpose except to _guarantee_ your death. If we do as they seem to want, at least for a while –"

"Ron," his President interrupted with a weary note. "We _can't_ do what they want. Not in any fashion; not for any length of time. It doesn't matter who these people are _or_ what they want; we can't give in to them. The United States does not…"

"Negotiate with terrorists, yeah," the senior agent muttered through gritted teeth. That was an axiom for political strategy, not a guideline for protecting lives.

"Not even for the life of the President," Bartlet reminded him. "Although you have to admire their flair." He shrugged tolerantly at his bodyguard's clear unwillingness to evince admiration of any kind. "They've got the perfect setup here. No matter the official line, this little dilemma is certainly high-profile enough to give the government pause. All policies aside, it's shockingly bad PR to allow your country's leader to be executed live on national TV."

Ron's job didn't grant him the luxury of intellectual speculation right now. "In that case, what's wrong with waiting?"

"Waiting?" The sheer bleakness in that echo made the air quiver. "For what?"

_He knew_. So much for Ron's debut as a diplomat. His protectee understood exactly what the single possible outcome had to be.

Bartlet regarded him somberly. "And for how long? This is an impossible scenario; it's simply unsustainable for any length of time. We know it and," he nodded towards the chaos in the surrounding stands, and the two assassins lurking in their midst, "they have to know it, too. We aren't in a hostage situation, Ron – we're part of a publicity stunt. No way can they hold out long enough for their demands to actually be met. They planned all along for tonight to be one big splash. They get the attention of the whole country, they line up their target in front of the world, and they issue their statement. And then," he concluded with blunt resignation, "they shoot."

"Sir..." Ron's voice was soft, robbed of all reassurance.

Bartlet's head sank for a moment, as if voicing that horrid truth had temporarily robbed him of all strength. Then he straightened anew, and the clouds behind those blue eyes cleared. He even smiled: a humorless, melancholy smile.

"I will not let the Presidency be exploited like that." His tone was unyielding. "Whether I act or wait, this whole thing is going to end very soon. Better I end it now than let _anyone_ gain leverage against the nation. I can't do anything to improve _my_ situation, but maybe I can preserve the sanctity of the office. At the very least, I can spare the government any unreasonable blame for not handling this right. And I'll sharply limit these fanatics' media exposure."

"They'll get a fair amount of exposure when they _kill_ you!" Ron ground out savagely. He was shaken to the core by this matter-of-fact analysis of a deliberate pending attempt at executive suicide.

Bartlet took no offence at such an atypical outburst. "Yes, but they won't control it anymore. They'll have no hostage. The Presidency will be safe."

"The President will be _dead!_"

"No." He shook his head firmly. "_Jed Bartlet _will be dead." Amazingly, his voice did not quaver. "_The President_ will be alive. And the nation will endure."

Both men jumped as another fusillade of shots rang out; it took a moment for them to realize that these bullets weren't headed their way. Both men turned towards the Grand Entrance, at right angles to their tête-à-tête. Sure enough, a fresh attempt to reach them both had just been thwarted.

"And there's the other reason, Ron." Bartlet grimaced, unveiling a cold trepidation that transcended his own survival. "Every minute I remain out here, more people will die. Not just _your_ people, trying to help me – but _my_ people, caught in the middle. Americans. Fellow human beings. And _that_, I will not permit."

Summoning the strength of body and mind, he lurched to his feet, stumbling forward before managing to regain his balance. He hunched over slightly, his wounded leg braced rigidly… but he stood.

Shouts of disbelief rippled from the stands, yet no gunfire accompanied them. For the moment.

"Don't…" However Ron might sympathize, or even agree, he still had to prevent this, either by physical intervention or through reason. It was his duty.

Bartlet gingerly let his weight settle onto his weak leg to see if it could handle the work. Satisfied, he brushed the grass from his trouser knees and his palms, then made an attempt to tame his hair – a motion so ordinary in this chaotic scene that it might well have drawn a few automatic grins from his observers. Then he set his jaw… and confronted _his_ duty.

He delayed one more moment to look down at his prostrate, bleeding companion. His voice strengthened, the unspoken plea for understanding clearly discernible. "Ron, I want to live. I want to go home to my wife, my daughters. But I can't just wait passively for death to come to me."

He paused, then added, under his breath, "It's coming in the next few minutes anyway."

Ron winced. At last one of them had come right out and verbally shredded the curtain of avoidance.

"I can't allow more people to give their lives for me – not when I can prevent it."

The man paid to step in front of the bullet couldn't summon much of a rebuttal to that.

"And I'm _damned_ if I'll allow myself to be used."

_His epitaph._

The President squared his shoulders with an air of purpose that only his strained features and convulsively working throat betrayed. Limping visibly, yet resolute in the face of overwhelming odds, he stepped forward alone.

The searing whiteness of the artificial lights seemed to bleach him of color, seemed to prematurely wash away his vitality.

The agent extended one hand – just a small movement of bloody fingers reaching across the grass. As though to follow him, or to stop him… or to block the fatal shot that was sure to ring out in one more heartbeat.

Hopeless. Flat on the ground, Ron could only watch him go.

**TBC…**


	6. Chapter 6

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 6 **

"He's alive." Harry gasped for air. "It's amazing, but he's still alive. I don't think… It doesn't look too bad…"

"He appears to be talking to the agent closest to him." June kept her sentences staccato-brief; anything longer and her barely-checked emotions would escape her control entirely. "They're still some eight or ten feet apart, though. That last bullet went right between them."

"I _wish_ the Secret Service would tell us how badly he's hurt!"

"You and me both, brother."

Leo had already secured his own hold on one of the agents holding _him._ "Will you find out how he is!"

Charlie inched closer, not turning from the field, yet positioned well enough to hear that information the moment it came through.

Toby paced once around his small office in short, choppy strides. "Is there _nothing _we can do to _help_ him?"

C.J. placed a hand on his shoulder, soberly bringing him to a halt. "Not from here. Just… pray._ Hard._"

Debbie nervously fingered her hair. "Maybe it hit the vest again."

Margaret chewed on _her_ hair. "How many hits can that vest _take?_"

Carol spoke for the entire bullpen, "He's still partly up… he's still conscious… he's still…"

Will spoke aloud; it made him feel less alone. "He's not out of the fight yet."

Josh articulated his thoughts for the very same reason. "He's not out of the woods."

Abbey ached with the keenest distress imaginable. Her place was with him; always had been, always would be. But she simply couldn't be with him this time. Nor could she possibly _get_ to him in time. At least here she knew what happened _as_ it happened – a pitiful substitute, but better than hearing about events even seconds after the fact. Thus she stayed, deceptively quiet, tensed to the last nerve, reduced to the role of helpless observer, watching her injured husband struggle alone.

This exquisite torture gnawed at all of Jed Bartlet's closest friends and colleagues as well – even those only twenty yards away from him.

"Have the mikes stopped working or something?" June scanned the media boarding their booth. "We can't hear a thing they're saying!"

"Greg, what's the problem?" Harry muffled his mike for this technical exchange. "They're right by home plate – that's our prime reception zone!"

"Hey, these babies have their limits," the producer snapped back, sounding harried in his own attempt to fine-tune things. "We're usually after shouted arguments, not whispers! Somebody want to tell those two to speak up?"

Harry let out a snort. "If you think I'm gonna step into that firing range, even for the privilege of speaking to the President of the United States…"

The Secret Service pressed their seek-and-destroy mission hard, combing and re-combing the endless reaches of stadium seating. One gunman was dead – the one capable of wholesale slaughter, the one technically more lethal – but the killer still at large was the harder of the two to trace. He rarely fired more than single shots, which were almost impossible to locate by sound and made it easier for him to duck back into the crowds. And _he_ hit exactly what he wanted to hit.

Then again, the sniper didn't have to be _downed_ to be stopped; he just had to be surrounded. If the agents could corner him – preferably away from civilians – he'd be too busy defending himself to keep shooting at the President… a situation that the President's bodyguards could eagerly exploit no matter what it might mean for _their_ safety.

The removal of the fully-automatic weapon meant that they now had a much better hope of living through this crisis. It spelled further good news for the tens of thousands in the captive audience on all sides.

In fact, the only person it did _not _hold any real hope for was the President himself: the man still centered in the sniper's crosshairs.

No one could have predicted it, but this whisper of reassurance and determination felt by the authorities had also started to trickle its way through the witnesses in the stands. Almost none knew that the weapons arrayed against them had been reduced by one. Most kept shoving towards the exits, caring for nothing but escape, and scattered at every additional hint of gunplay, no matter how distant it seemed. Some, however, realized the difference between the former automatic fire and the current _semi_-automatic fire… and started to get the idea that, unlike the other gunman, this shooter wasn't aiming at _them. _Slowly, selectively, it began to sink into a few brains that they were no longer prey, that the hunter had tunnel-visioned on another. They were safe…

For the moment…

A percentage of those discerning individuals were graced with cooler heads, or with their own military training. A segment of _those_ individuals had been deeply inspired by their President's heroic walk. And a still-smaller cross-section of _those_ noticed when the sniper came and went among them.

What distilled out of all this was a tiny nucleus of citizens who had enough knowledge to feel confident, and enough confidence to feel brave. The Secret Service simply didn't have the numbers to scour all of these bleachers or to dash for the sniper's general location fast enough; he always vanished into the crush after each shot. But he would not likely expect an uprising _from_ the crush. Plus, while he had to be aware of his surroundings at all times in order to dodge his pursuers, he directed most of his attention towards the people on the field below: the people he was shooting at. Ever so cautiously, dreadfully aware that they themselves were unarmed, five or six human shadows began to track.

The overall screaming in the stands had changed. It was no longer the prolonged roar of undiluted pandemonium, but muted and more intermittent. A fair bit of that noise came from those who scrambled over the seats and ran wailing up and down the steps or plowed heedlessly through the press without regard for others, utterly consumed by panic. By contrast, some stayed where they were, hiding under the seats, too far from the exits or just not strong enough to stand a chance against the masses trying to squeeze themselves through narrow doorways like an overloaded spaghetti maker. Some, too, having apparently given themselves up for dead, sat down and fatalistically turned their attention to center stage. And some had adopted a unique human self-delusion, shared by those tourists who persist in visiting notoriously dangerous locations: that, because this deadly situation didn't directly concern _them_, they wouldn't be touched by it.

Most, however, worried only about their own safety, not about events around them or who else might be involved. Even the threat of being shot if they tried to leave couldn't stop them putting as much distance between themselves and that threat as humanly possible.

Not so different from what Jed Bartlet was doing, come to think of it. Get away from the gunfire, one way or another. At least then it would soon be over.

Of course the Secret Service on the inside and the Baltimore police on the outside wanted as many people evacuated as possible; besides reducing casualties overall, it would also restrict the area in which the enemy could hide. This act of defiance played some fairly decent odds: two gunmen couldn't hope to block off every single point of egress. And now there was only one – trying to concentrate on the army after him, the Grand Entrance and the President at the same time.

"At least the standing section has almost completely emptied by now. But there must be over thirty thousand people still trapped in here." June shook her head. "I hate to think what it's like around the exits."

"That's also more than enough people to cause a lot of noise. We're not going to hear _anything_ going on below us at this –"

Harry cut himself off short as a faint yet unmistakable voice filtered into their booth…

_"… who do you think is the boss of me?"_

"That's him!"

"Shh!"

The barely-audible transmission faded out again. Most of the people in the stands never heard it above their own racket, but the broadcast signals had far less interference with which to cope. The two commentators waited, holding their breaths, staring down at the two men conferring on the diamond, hoping eagerly for more.

_"… don't answer…"_

They almost groaned in frustration as the signal fluctuated. The whole nation strained with them –

_"…long list, and… I'm not even in the top three."_

From the monitors in the tunnel to the TVs around the world, countless listeners heard that spontaneous display of Bartlet wit. They also heard June's involuntary giggle.

One might wonder how many others chuckled as well.

Leo's shoulder slumped. "That man can joke at the _worst_ times…"

Charlie was on the exact same wavelength. "But it's always a good sign."

C.J. closed her eyes. "Great. Next week there'll be editorials in the Wall Street Journal about a President who's too easily swayed and controlled."

Toby didn't disagree with her. "Pundits have no sense of humor."

Debbie shared this morose prediction. "Want to bet tomorrow's leading articles will say, 'What does this tell us about the caliber of the man who currently holds the most powerful office in the country?'"

Margaret had a ready reply: "It says that he can keep his cool in the worst circumstances!"

Carol had to smile. "That's courage: he can _fight_, and joke _while_ fighting!"

Will fell in with the President's sardonic mood. "Realistically, he has to answer to the Secret Service, the Joint Chiefs, the Cabinet, Congress as a whole, and the people in the ultimate end equation. Sounds like democracy to me."

Josh took the certain promise of public criticism as a personal affront. Some politicos would spin anything anyway they could. "He's _human!_ Can't people understand that?"

Abbey's mouth curved just a bit, for just a moment… for she knew that she occupied the number one position on that list.

Harry _did_ groan this time. "It's gone again! Greg, get it back!"

_"Trying…"_

"Are they going to just stay there and chat?" June wondered aloud. She didn't want to come across as _offended_ at being left out of the private discussion going on below… but curiosity has always been an inbred characteristic of the human race. Given that this wasn't exactly tea on the South Lawn, why didn't Bartlet continue to try to get _out_ of there?

"So long as he _does_ stay put, no one'll shoot at him."

"True, that. Speaking of which, who do you suppose is behind this?"

"Foreign terrorism, surely." In this pause, the pair of commentators had slipped back almost unawares into their original roles: commenting on each aspect of the events around them. The current interlude in the action suited them every bit as well as a time-out during play.

"I'm not so sure, Harry. That broadcast of theirs… it was too – what's the word? Colloquial. And I didn't notice an accent, either."

"Come on; the Middle East is _the_ problem _du jour!_"

"Hey, the President could be doing everything perfectly both at home _and_ abroad and there'd still be _someone_ around here who's mad at him. This could be completely unrelated to his policies. It could be an attack against the _office_, not the man holding it."

Secret Service agents raced through the complex, up and down stairs, through milling fans, past empty lounges…

"Nah, this _has_ to be personal!" Harry insisted, switching hats from sports commentator to political pundit in an instant. "Think about it: he's already announced that he wants to pursue a peace initiative, despite the recent American deaths. Never mind the blow to this country; _his_ death now will derail everything around the world!"

June nodded reluctantly. "You may have something. Any kind of American-sponsored effort can't go through if the host is killed!"

The next grouping of shots made both announcers duck, even though they had no reason at all to believe _they_ were targeted.

"That gunfire was directed at the Grand Entrance," June swiftly informed everyone. "You can _hear_ the ricochet off stone. At least that implies that it didn't hit anyone …"

One agent happened to pass close enough to a TV monitor of the current broadcast, and this immediate area happened to be vacant enough for him to overhear a few lines from the audio coverage…

Harry was still going strong with his theories. "Remember what they said: '_your _President' – like he wasn't theirs as well. They _have_ to be foreigners."

"Not necessarily. What about domestic freedom fighters? They don't recognize the President's authority at all. In that way of thinking, he isn't _theirs_ either."

"Possible – but I doubt it. The timing is _way_ too coincidental. Why _else_ would anyone attack tonight? It's not as if the Secret Service made it easy!"

"Well, how about this? A lot of people are downright upset that the President hasn't already retaliated for the American loss of life and launched a strike against Palestine." June hesitated, then forced herself to complete her next thought. "Someone might think that a new President would be more sympathetic to military options."

"You mean Russell? But that only reinforces my point: this is all about –"

The door to their booth slammed open, just like before. The same black-clad man stood on the threshold, holding the same huge assault weapon.

This time, he hadn't come to ask their help.

"Can the speculation. _Both_ of you."

Before, his voice had been calm. This time it was cold.

Both reporters solidified, eyes wide. _What?_

The agent apparently decided that a bit more explanation would make sure he was obeyed. "You're doing more harm than _they_ are."

Harry gulped. June's hand flew to her lips.

The agent left and the door swung closed. It had no bars on its window, but the comparison to a jail cell still took shape.

No one could debate that the Secret Service was capable of both a legal and a physical threat… but these two sportscasters didn't even think about risk to themselves.

"My God." June was fighting tears. "What have we _done?_"

"I'll tell you what we've done," Harry's tone was bitter with shame. "The President doesn't _need_ foreign enemies – not when he's got you and me"

"We were just trying to put the pieces together… to help out somehow… but we don't have the facts… we could be completely out in left field here…"

"To say nothing of any inflamed feelings we might have caused among the public." Harry directed his next solemn words to their nationwide audience. "Folks, we two offer you all an apology. These thoughts were ours – not the networks', and not the authorities'. I know we're under a bit of tension here, but –"

_"He's up!"_

The TV view, and the billboard display, had been on the President and his chief bodyguard all this time. Due to her recent distraction, June had only just spotted something that all other viewers already knew.

Jed Bartlet was indeed on his feet: swaying a bit, the right leg braced awkwardly, but his head still high. He had battled the compelling urge to stay down, to capitulate before his enemies, to play the safer card for himself even if it would be worse for the country that way – and he had won.

Most of those viewers rejoiced to see that their President was able to stand in the first place. Some, of course, disliked him too much to celebrate. Some were too indifferent to the man to care about anything but the drama. And a certain number of others _feared_… because standing took a scythe to the remaining minutes of his life.

Leo let out a genuine growl. He knew his phenomenally-stubborn friend far too well. "For once in your life, don't dig in your heels to prove a point!"

Charlie agreed. "He's already _made_ his point."

C.J. looked ready to fall over from incredulity – and alarm. "He _has_ to know what he's doing. He can't _not_ know!"

Toby didn't appear any steadier; his voice lowered significantly. "He knows. And he knows exactly what it's going to cost him."

Margaret inhaled. "He's got to be scared! How could he _not_ be?"

Debbie _ex_haled. "Oh, he is. He's just not giving in to it."

Carol simply gaped. "I knew he was strong, but _this_…"

Will shook his head, unable to find words that would pay sufficient tribute to what he saw.

Josh gesticulated with both arms. "You don't have to prove _anything_, sir! Not now!"

Abbey was approaching hyperventilation. "Damn you, Jed, _don't do this!_ The country isn't worth it!"

Had he been able to hear his wife, The Man would have argued that point. Besides, it wasn't just for the nation: it was for him as well.

The patchy, cobbled-together directionals hissed, fluttered, and again bore fruit.

_"I can't just wait passively for death to come to me…"_

June gasped audibly as realization knifed through her.

_"… next few minutes anyway."_

Harry's jaw dropped in identical understanding. "He really believes he's going to die here."

And thus did the rest of the country and the world achieve the same stunning comprehension.

_"I can't allow more people to give their lives… I can prevent it."_

June started tearing up again.

_"And I'm DAMNED if I'll allow myself to be used."_

The mikes didn't fade out that time. The speaker's head was up and his voice, while not raised, was clear. He couldn't know that he was being overheard this time, what with the polarized acoustics in the park and the general noise level in the stands – but his enormous media audience all received that vital message.

And they all got the same view: the resumption of his walk. He demanded the right and the dignity to control his own life, refusing to yield that control to others. The end result would be the same anyway.

Even those viewers and listeners who did not number themselves among Bartlet's fandom could not help but admire him. Yes, he had broken a campaign promise or two; yes, he had hidden his health issues from the public; yes, he had approved an enemy diplomat's assassination. But two qualities that _no one_ could dispute tonight, not even his most rabid detractors, were his personal courage and his compassion for others – citizen and country both. Forget public image; forget party politics. Neither meant a thing when he knew that his next actions would almost certainly be his last.

The camera zoomed in on his face, spotting the clenched teeth, the sweated brow, the frigid glare. He had every natural right to be scared: of the terrifying gunfire on all sides, and of the terrifying knowledge that soon one bullet would strike. Even so, he didn't let that stop him doing the right thing. He was going to fight every last step of the way.

June gave no thought to her own safety now; she hugged the glass. "He's limping pretty badly. That last shot must've hit him in the right leg. But at least it's not so bad that he can't walk on it – and he _is!_ He's going on!"

Harry joined her. "He's got twenty yards to go, max. If only he can just _get there!_"

"If only they'll _let_ him…!"

Every witness, both in person and in absentia, had to get the idea now that their President was on a very tight clock. No matter what he did, without a doubt his attackers would try to kill him before this was over. Obeying their orders would simply kill him slower.

Pursuing this thought, those witnesses also reasoned that the gunmen didn't have much leisure themselves, no matter how they might pretend to the public. They were fast losing control of the situation. They couldn't hide in the stands forever; eventually the Secret Service _would_ close in. Plus, their hostage was about to stroll off the field, destroying all the notoriety they had worked so hard to achieve.

And the more time elapsed, the more trigger-happy _everyone_ would get.

The tension climbed inexorably on all fronts, twisting nerve endings until a person could hardly stand the strain.

The sniper had had enough of this passive resistance. However, by now he also had to have guessed at his partner's elimination, and that only jacked up his own nervousness. He wanted to avenge his friend – but even more, he wanted to proclaim his cause. For that, he needed to find one of those directional microphones. And in order to have enough time for _that,_ he needed a _stationary_ hostage.

He let loose another echoing shot that bisected the air and sliced up earth about four feet ahead of Bartlet's toes.

Bartlet stopped short, his whole body flinching as bits of dirt and grass dusted him.

"Miss," Harry reported shortly.

June wrung her hands. "How long is this going to go on? How many _more_ will miss?"

The gunman pressed his black rifle lengthwise against his black clothes, its thick stock tucked inside his windbreaker and its narrow barrel disguised against his pant leg, and merged with the crowds fleeing his last location. None of them had the presence of mind to look closely at their fellows; they just wanted away from the sound of that weapon. He easily pretended to be one of them, until he reached another section of the stands and judged it safe to reassess.

Sure enough, his target had moved forward again. Where he found the iron to do so, no one knew.

This next whiplash report matched the _WHANG_ of the bullet against the wall behind the third base line.

Braking again, Bartlet turned to his left, and saw the hideous scar caused by speeding lead mangling itself against steel. Then he rotated the other way, estimating its trajectory. His enemy had to have been in the very first row for that shot, and would have almost certainly hit him if he'd happened to move two strides faster.

_What is it they say? The bullet you DON'T hear is the one that kills you._

"That one missed, too," June reported, voice breaking under the strain. "But…"

"But it looks like it cut right across the President's path." Harry swallowed. "The shooter is getting desperate."

The video projection captured The Man's perfectly understandable apprehension, his longer pause than ever before… and then his return to course. He would not give up.

He had crossed almost one-third of the remaining distance to cover…

Leo's face was bloodless.

Charlie's face was old beyond its years.

"For God's sake, sir!" C.J. seemed to think that her boss could hear her if she only shouted loudly enough. _"Duck and cover!"_

"Don't talk to the TV," Toby advised morosely. "It doesn't do one bit of – _watch it!_" he yelled, abandoning his own advice as another screaming round drove the faces in the tunnel back again.

"He's still walking!" Margaret cried. "He can't be _that_ badly hurt!"

"A person can be fully conscious and still bleed to death," Debbie pointed out softly.

"He's so slow," Carol said hoarsely. "He's _hurt,_ and he's _defenseless!_"

Will gripped the edge of his desk. "What if they change ammo?"

Josh gripped the mount of the elevated TV. "What if they go for _broke?_"

Abbey had no voice at all; she was barely able to breathe.

_Heard that one. As long as I can hear them, it's all right. I'm all right._

Ron forced himself to rise to hands and knees. This was horrifically similar to when his protectee first stepped onto the field: moving further and further away from the man most dedicated to defending him. The fact that _these_ seconds were dragging out, as though in slow motion, made it even harder for Ron to bear. The danger was no longer suspected – it had been confirmed.

The senior agent had precious little strength left, after the pain and the blood loss, but he was also off the shooter's radar. A bodyguard creeping across the turf would seem to pose no threat to a hostage-taker with an escaping hostage. It meant dragging the deadweight of his left leg; still, he found that he could crawl almost as fast as Bartlet could walk. The Man's calf-nick had to be more serious than he'd thought… or than he'd let on.

The next shot headed straight for the tunnel mouth – not the stone around it. The agents, the EMTs, Leo and Charlie flattened to the cement floor in unison. Of course, by the time they realized that this round had passed right among them, it was already through and gone, but no one refused the instinct to drop.

_Heard it… good… we're still good…_

These grim observations had become a kind of executive mantra. The loud report didn't prevent Bartlet from braking, but it did help him overcome the shrieking desire to surrender. Again, he placed one slow, wincing foot in front of the other.

"I think that last shot went right _down_ the Grand Entrance; we didn't hear it strike the wall. Judging from our monitors, there must be at least ten people crowded in the mouth. I wonder," Harry mused to himself and to his listeners, though with a frantic edge to his voice, "if this was supposed to be a warning of a different kind: _stop, or else OTHER people will die._"

"Maybe. The President's not giving in for his own sake, but he probably would give in for theirs." Then June changed tracks. "Except that _those_ people have shelter."

Thoroughly rattled by this unbelievable tenacity that their worst-case scenarios had never dreamed of, the sniper started to run for another vantage point. Again he kept his long weapon masked by his like-colored attire as he hurried up the concrete steps –

_"NOW!"_

_"GET 'IM!"_

Like panthers, three men sprang together. One went for the knees, one for the rifle and one for the throat. The assassin and hunter, now suddenly become prey himself, was smashed to the floor before he knew what had happened, and pinned there by an inescapable weight.

The Secret Service arrived moments later, drawn by this scuffle in the exact area where the sniper should be. What they found surprised even them: their quarry arrested by civilians who had disregarded their own peril. What agent could have anticipated assistance of this caliber, and under these chaotic circumstances? The President didn't possess the only source of courage here tonight.

The second they secured the prisoner and the weapon, the bodyguards hurried to get this news out. At last _both_ gunmen had been accounted for. The threat was over! Their fellows could rush the field and get their leader to –

_CRACK!_

That could not be mistaken. _Another_ shot –

From _another_ gun –

Which meant _another_ shooter –

Jed Bartlet took this round square in the spine. It kicked him forward, arching his body and whiplashing his head back. He actually became airborne for one second before crashing full-length onto his front. _Everyone_ heard his choked-off cry as the breath was crushed out of his lungs, already-injured ribs were compressed and other bones were savagely hammered.

_"He's hit!"_ screamed June.

_"He's down!"_ screamed Harry.

It took several endless seconds for The Man to stop moving, to settle onto his face, to cease twitching and be still.

Individuals in the stadium and around the world went strangely silent, hearts clenched, watching him lie horribly motionless before them all.

It took another few protracted seconds for him to start moving again, to drag himself back towards life.

The stadium and the world did _not_ move, quite unable to do so.

He should have been unable to as well… and yet the billboard and the TV screens insisted that they saw movements in his arms, his head.

It took several seconds more for _all_ of his observers to slowly digest the fact that he was not down completely after all, not yet dead.

**TBC…**


	7. Chapter 7

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 7 **

Through granite will and sheer rage, the President of the United States fought off the tidal wave of pain and the smothering blanket of unconsciousness. If he blacked out now, he'd _stay_ out. His whole body was begging for seriously-needed rest, for recuperation, for relief from torments old and new, and once this need gained a toehold it probably wouldn't release him for hours. Of course, if he continued to push his limits, at some eventual point exhaustion would rise up and short-circuit his brain.

But that would come _later. _If he had any say in it, not _now._

There was at least some dignity in just lying there motionless, quite aside from the reduction in overall suffering. An indomitable spirit, however, is its own curse.

He lifted his head, blinked at clinging grit and dancing stars, and sucked in a tremulous breath through the scorching blaze around his heart.

_At least I heard it… means I'm still alive…_

The smack of another bullet not so many feet beyond his outstretched fingers helped chase away the worst of the fatigue. Adrenaline will do that.

Some muffled shouting quite nearby drew his attention. The Grand Entrance was the scene of a good-sized wrestling match – and Leo and Charlie were in the thick of it, _both_ having to be restrained from charging the field.

_"STOP!"_

It was weaker than his usual roar when he was really ticked, but that presidential order would _not_ be disobeyed. It also reached the directionals quite fine, reverberating across those twelve yards, throughout the stands and over the wires. The combatants halted in equal parts compliance and surprise.

They had to wait until he got his tortured respiration back under control. Yelling around broken ribs – back _or _front – comes at a steep price.

_"Stay put… Stay… SAFE. I'll… do this."_

The mikes caught that as well.

Ron had stopped his own arduous advance, fearing that, with Bartlet down, said advance would draw unwanted attention. They were proximate enough now that a hurried shot might hit either one of them. Meanwhile, Ron's still-bleeding thigh wouldn't let _him_ continue much longer either.

The Man was true to his word. Slowly, agonizingly, he rolled off his laboring chest and gathered his limbs under him, ready to try standing once more.

Unable to do anything else to help, his observers urged him on.

"You can _see_ the rip in the back of his jacket where the bullet hit!" June babbled into her mike.

Harry exhaled gustily. "He's got to be wearing a vest of some kind."

"No kidding – or he wouldn't have survived the _first_ shot, much less _this_ one."

"Has he ever worn a vest before?" This question was only human, and those who listened and watched were just as human as those who reported the events.

"No idea."

"From my own experience with business suits, you'd never fit something that bulky underneath."

"Still, it's a pretty sensible precaution, if you ask me."

"Sure – but publicity-wise…?"

There were two critical reactions to this exchange: the public response… and the criminal response. The latter would quite possibly launch an ammunition shopping spree. The former would most likely launch a vociferous debate.

Correction: there was also a _third_ reaction – from the White House, and all those affiliated with it. Their position was in direct opposition to the other two. Their role would be defense… physical _and_ political.

Leo was shaking. "If two bullets hit in the _exact same spot_…"

Charlie most definitely did not want him to finish that thought.

Toby rumbled like a volcano about to blow. "If anyone makes a stink about him not daring to step into public without that vest, they'll answer to _me._"

C.J. was simmering as well. "I'll have to deal with the questions. But _he_ has to deal with the battle scars."

Margaret's lip curled. "_Every_ President who throws out a pitch has worn one, ever since those things were first invented."

Debbie matched her expression. "Exactly. The Service doesn't give them a choice. And this is why."

Carol knew all about spin as well. "Without that vest he'd be _dead!_ Would everyone prefer that?"

Will folded his arms, taking the strategic angle. "Someone should mention that he's never worn a vest before, ever."

Josh tried to shake some sense into the firmly-mounted TV. "How many times has he been in the open air, even _after_ Rosslyn? _Huh?_"

Abbey said nothing. The pulse pounded visibly in her throat. That vest had preserved the heart that beat in time with her own, that was more important to her _than_ her own.

Were those compressed Kevlar layers able to _continue_ doing so?

Agents were descending upon the section of stands behind center field. The President's brief flight had indicated that he'd been struck directly from behind, not at an angle.

It also established one other glaring fact: they had a _third_ gunman to find! Like the other two, this was a very skilled professional, able to do the near-impossible: infiltrate the Secret Service security _and_ hit a small moving target at over a hundred yards with very little time to aim.

How many assassins were in this cadre? How many more might there be?

The Secret Service was back to square one: they had to nail _all_ shooters before they could do anything else… even protect their leader.

Once again, Bartlet began to lever himself to his feet. He did his best to bite back the groans that every move wrung out of him, but the mikes heard a few anyway.

"I think the bullet hit just a bit off-center," June hypothesized. "Otherwise he'd have a broken vertebrate, and he wouldn't have a hope of standing."

"But now he's got to have _more_ bruised ribs. He'll be lucky if he doesn't pass out from the shock." Admiration rose above Harry's dismal words.

"Wait – listen!" June grabbed her companion's arm, silencing him. 

The directional mikes, stubborn and uncooperative, had picked up a series of executive mutters, a private articulation born of hard labor, coming together to form a solemn vow: not meant for others, yet just loud enough to carry…

_"Never again… we will not surrender to terror!"_

"All right!" Harry cheered. And the nation, the world, cheered with him. "Go, Mr. President!"

Bartlet didn't even notice that his words were being picked up and shared with the whole nation. He was draining the last reserves of his energy _and_ his self-control. He dismissed the shouts from the tunnel, the fractured commotion from the stands (whether in support or in fear), the skin-crawling knowledge that a rifle was probably drawing a lethal bead on him right now, and everything else – _everything_ save his drive to fight on.

_Mother of God, help me… I've got nothing to promise, nothing to barter with…_

It took him far longer than the previous two efforts, pushing with only one arm – favoring his left side, his right leg and his whole spinal column. It demanded all of his anger, all of his faith, and all of his internal fortitude. He couldn't stand quite straight anymore; the fire eating into his back prevented that. He staggered, coming within a hair of toppling back over. He struggled to force air past the inferno on both sides of his lungs. He wagged his head a bit, half-blinded by perspiration and weary to the bone.

He stood there for several seconds, too worn out to do anything more… yet he remained on his feet, ever defiant of those who thought they could break him.

The last hints of neatness and composure had vanished. Grass particles had been ground into jacket, trousers and shoes. His jacket and his shirt collar gaped open a couple more inches, as though to avoid restricting his air intake, and his hair was wild. One half of his face displayed bright red abrasions from the violent face-plant.

He was still on his own. He had to save himself; no mortal could aid him.

_I'll probably be seeing you in a few more minutes anyway… just please, help… for just this little bit longer…_

He took a step forward.

Harry couldn't resist cheering some more. "Wow! He's unstoppable!"

"And _unbeatable_!" Evidently June felt that such romantic nonsense fit here just fine.

The Man was extraordinarily resilient, yes… but all at once "unstoppable" seemed a bit of an exaggeration. He did stop, after completing that first step.

Not from fear: from melting prowess.

Then he managed another short step. And stopped again. And then, slowly, a third.

Leo reached forward, as though he could hurl his own strength through the air to the man who really needed it.

Charlie did not move, but the agent nearest to him kept a firm hold on his arm; one second of inattention on _his_ part and the aide would be right out there.

C.J. repeatedly opened and closed her fists. "God, the pain he must be in…"

Toby pocketed his fists. "And not just physical."

Debbie rubbed her forehead as though _she_ were in pain. "This is _inhuman_ punishment."

Margaret pressed a hand to her neckline. "And yet he's _doing_ it!"

Carol and her fellow support staffers crowded even closer to the TV bank.

Will adjusted his glasses as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Josh did believe it – barely. "How much can he _take?_"

Abbey breathed every bit as hard as her husband did, as though she could somehow share in his trial and take some of his anguish upon herself. If only she _could!_

Ron radioed a final command, before resuming his own hard path. "One more shot like that and he'll stay down even if it _doesn't _kill him! _Find that sniper!_"

The vest was still preventing fatal damage, as designed, but no human can shrug off multiple impacts of such merciless velocity. Fortunately, the gunmen hadn't figured this out sooner: that knocking the President down time and again would have been far more effective than just trying to scare him with near-misses. They had taken a cruel pleasure in shooting very close; their sadism would have been even better served by aiming repeatedly for the vest's euphemistic "safety zone," thereby torturing him without actually killing him – yet. He refused to bow to fear, but he would have had no chance against the trauma of repeated body slams.

What Bartlet had already endured took its relentless toll. His shoulders were rounded by the exertion to stand, much less walk. Every move required fierce concentration. Every pace was wretchedly slow, half the length it used to be, with a tangible pause in between to gather fresh energy. His route meandered from side to side, compensating for tenuous balance, which created a vaguely serpentine trail and increased the distance he had to cross; it amazed more than one observer each time he recovered and stumbled back on course. They could all hear his harsh gasps now. He had neither oxygen nor strength to spare for speech. During each of those pauses he swayed in place as though drunk…

Or _dizzy._

Of all the people present in Oriole Park, Charlie put these pieces together first. "Leo… could those be – _symptoms?_"

"Oh, _hell._" The Chief of Staff actually paled a bit further. "An attack on top of everything else?" As though his friend's constitution hadn't been compromised _enough_ for one night! He whirled on the nearest agent that _didn't_ have an arm-hold on him. "Achilles Alert!"

The President had once said that stress was a prime candidate to trigger an MS relapse. Well, tonight _should_ qualify as stressful. The agent at once radioed out to initiate the private medical protocol that had been in effect since the start of the Bartlet administration, for just such a _public_ relapse as this.

On the field, Ron heard this transmission as well – and it jolted him to a halt. Incredibly, none of them had given that potential health glitch a single thought before now.

On camera, those blue eyes remained fastened on the presidential goal. Hunched, limping, sweating, panting, Jed Bartlet slowly walked forward, willing muscles rendered stiff and unnatural from fear and the screaming instinct for self-preservation to still obey himHewas totally focused on just moving forward and ending this. Nothing else mattered.

The field wall near third base _SPLANGED_ with as much of a concussion as a cannonball, or so it seemed; the omnipresent cameras caught his violent shudder. Instinct won out over purpose and he stopped. Fear lent wings to imagination – he could swear he'd felt the wind of the bullet's passage. The thudding of his heart seemed to pound through every vein, strumming his nerves to fever pitch and sending fresh darts of pain to ribs and leg. Swallowing dryly, he closed his eyes against the hot glare of the floodlights.

The desire to live, to do whatever might lengthen life for even a few more precious seconds is a potent thing, a natural force born and bred in all creatures great and small. Despair is also normal; for a moment his head fell forward, and that human emotion rose in a white-hot flood that briefly drowned out pain, heat, vision and sound.

Determination and will are also part of being alive. Courage is what drives it.

Nobody who watched, or listened to the passion of the broadcasters as they described what happened next, could fail to recognize that courage when his head slowly rose again. They knew he was scared, and rightly so. Yet the President straightened his shoulders as best he could and slowly, hesitantly, stepped forward yet again. Through the fear, through the danger.

Only a fool has no fear. Real bravery is to confront the fear, in all its intensity, and to conquer it.

_Still heard it… it's okay…_

"He's moving at a snail's pace!" June moaned, watching and reporting as this last battle took place below.

Harry almost did the same. "And at least one of the shooters is still at large! They could kill him at any second!"

"They'll try, too! Surely they'd rather see him _dead_ than let him get away!"

"Which means the _last _few seconds will be the most dangerous of all! Just before he's out of their sights!"

"And there's _nothing_ anyone can do about –"

The door to the booth swung open.

Once again the man in black with the ferocious assault rifle confronted them.

Both commentators froze. What had they done wrong _this _time?

"We need your help."

In eerie unison, June and Harry performed one slow blink. Okay, they hadn't expected _that._

"Turn your cameras on the stands. Maybe we can spot the sniper from here."

_"Yeah!" _Harry obeyed at once. "Greg! Now hear this…"

The image that hit the networks, the TV channels and the Jumbotron display over the outfield did not change: the President advancing one heartbreakingly slow step at a time. Every other camera, though, took up the task of panning the stadium sections, and all hands that could be spared followed multiple monitors in the producer's office and in the announcers' booth, peering for the first clue. A gun barrel… spectators scattering from one spot… _anything._

The agents didn't want the news to get around that some members of the crowd had brought down the second gunman themselves; that might incite others to try, and no one wanted a supply of dead heroes. And yet, despite their silence on the matter, a current of empowering enthusiasm circulated in subtle ripples among those who had taken part in that citizens' arrest. The positive reaction of a few started to influence others. If they did it once, they could do it again!

That fervor began to spread outward, slowly replacing the panic that had created one beast and begetting another in its place. The mob, the _herd_, fragmented once again, creating new pockets of secondary identity within the whole – pockets of lesser panic.

A cornered animal, beaten and bruised, pushed to its uttermost limits, will finally realize that flight is not the only avenue of safety. There comes a time when to turn on the attacker, to face the hunter, is the only choice survival allows.

They certainly had incentive. They, too, were trapped in this ballpark – almost as securely as the President himself. _They_ were being threatened and attacked, not only directly, but also symbolically in the form of their elected representative. They were witnesses to the unthinkable, a vital factor in the total equation. The entire world was watching this insane drama play out – a drama that had bloomed to involve _everyone._ Everyone had been united and fused together, as only disaster can do. Therefore everyone should be willing to take a hand and contribute to a happy ending: to survive and continue.

Yes, there is safety in numbers. Yes, a crowd is only as good as its lowest common denominator. Sometimes, though, that safety helps individual minds find the strength to act. Sometimes that low denominator can be the best of "us" in the end. And when these things do happen, the group identity become stronger.

A crowd this big was bound to splinter a bit, and panic a lot, particularly without clear direction. Still, they were not without any direction at all. The last man standing on the baseball field undisputedly supplied some of that.

The office of the Presidency has a mystique and charisma regardless of who occupies it. Its current incumbent had been justly elected to lead – but even more so, he _was_ leading, in every respect of the word. He was setting an example that could not be ignored or belittled.

This was as immediate as life can get – survival at its most terrible. The people were not really changing their mental references… just refining them in the forge of total fear.

The nation had watched one of its Presidents die in 1963. It had seen another dodge the same fate by mere inches in 1981. It had come appallingly close to losing _this_ President in exactly the same fashion in 2000. Its people did not deserve to have such a horror repeated here tonight – and they didn't have to permit it. Suddenly, quite a few individuals in the throng saw themselves as an extension of the Secret Service. The people were rising up together to fight for their leader, their _home!_ The new, compelling wave of patriotism and simple decent humanity spread forth, just as The Man had said mere heartbeats ago: _"NEVER AGAIN!"_

That wave faced its first challenge almost at once: a fresh volley of shots – individual trigger pulls, but three in quick succession. One hit the dirt near the Yankees' dugout. One rebounded off the fence above home plate, directly in front of the seating row reserved for the guest of honor.

The third one rocketed down the Grand Entrance, actually plucking the shoulder of Bartlet's jacket as it passed. He instinctively yanked his head sideways at the sensation of the very air parting right beside his ear. That shot entered the concrete tunnel at an angle and caromed wildly from wall to wall inside, missing Charlie by a margin far too narrow for comfort.

There were still some people in the crowd who felt either safe enough or fatalistic enough to observe rather than flee – enough to create a collective groan at these horribly close calls. They were almost a mass organism by now, drained by unremitting tension, watching as that lone individual drew the hunter in for a final strike.

Ron reached the only possible conclusion: the most horrendous of all. "They're going for a _killing _shot!"

The third gunman had given up on stopping the President _alive._

He did not appear to be quite as expert a marksman as the other sniper, or this would have ended here and now. But that wouldn't stop him from trying again. Bartlet was staggering even more than before; by this stage of the game he was dazed and uncomprehending as well as exhausted. Fortunately, that stagger made him a slightly more difficult target. This time the sound of shooting did not make him hesitate; no more, that is, than the prolonged pause he already took between each pace. He had reached the point where all of these sounds, no matter how loud or sharp or urgent, no longer held much power over him. He was too dog-tired even to think.

He still had eight endless yards to go.

This third shooter's lesser skill at the much harder head shot granted an extra smidgeon of time – but no more. If he kept slinging multiple shots like the previous cluster, one of them had to hit soon.

A person can walk on a leg that's been shot, so long as the femoral artery and the bone itself are intact. Also, adrenaline and endorphins are unbelievably potent chemicals, especially when mixed with will power. After all, the strongest painkillers in existence are produced by the human body. Ron banished all thought of pain and infirmity and scrambled to his feet.

The gunman's attempt to bracket his shots, in the hope that _one_ of them would land on target, was his undoing. He had stayed in the same place too long. Turning to go in search of a new ambush-point, he suddenly found himself cornered. Not, he realized in his first taste of the same terror he and his compatriots had been handing out all this time, by the deadly efficient agents of the Secret Service – but by no less than twenty ball fans. None of them armed; all of them angry. Angry at_ him._

For those watching and listening, reality seemed to twist and slow down. Exhausted almost beyond endurance and showing it to the world, the President pushed himself wearily closer to that shadowed entrance. His respiration was fast and rasping, strained by agony, half-strangling him. Leo leaned forward on the threshold, gesturing dramatically, his lips moving, but the crowd's constant clamor drowned any words of encouragement.

Or words of warning – nobody could be sure.

Ron gathered all the rage and frustrated helplessness of this entire evening and used the force of that fury to launch a low, desperate charge. He knew that his protectee's luck was about to run out for good; he had to get him out of the line of fire _now._ He closed the last few yards by flinging himself forward, rugby style.

Bartlet placed one more stumbling foot before the other. No energy remained to spend on trying to understand –

The camera panned forward again: Leo twisting forcefully in the grip of his agent, breaking free, lunging forward onto the field.

– he sensed rather than heard what the cameras and the reporters had already given to the world: the sudden rush of movement behind him –

Frantic, knowing he was about to lose everything, the assassin leveled his weapon in a rush and yanked the trigger one more time.

Ron plowed into the President from behind and hurled him towards the shelter of the staircase. Forget about bruises and broken ribs; they would heal. The next gunshot might not.

– a strong pair of arms clamped around his burning chest and a rapidly moving shoulder rammed his bullet-scored back –

_CRA –_

– and the inside of his brain exploded in a crimson light that turned swiftly black, granting him time for only one despairing thought –

_I never heard it._

At the very same instant that the senior agent impacted with his protectee, he felt Bartlet spasm in his arms. The head snapped forward. Something warm and damp splattered his own face.

The camera caught it perfectly: the blazing red halo blossoming from The Man's skull – exactly like the horror depicted in the Zapruder film forty-two years ago.

Leo dashed onto the green, with splendid timing to meet these two soaring bodies full-on and get mown down. His boss and best friend was propelled into his embrace. He landed underneath, hard, yet still doing everything he could to cushion Bartlet's fall. However, he'd forgotten that Bartlet came with an attachment: a very solid, very fast-moving chief of security. Leo's head and spine whammed against the earth.

Ron rolled off double-quick, speared by an icicle of total horror. In a flashing microsecond he realized that, because of his own handicapped locomotion, because he had throw himself into that tackle so hard, because he had tackled his protectee so low – the shot he just heard went _over_ his head. It had missed him entirely –

The President would have been a few critical inches taller at that instant –

The President had convulsed at the report –

The President's head had –

Gasping, Leo found himself flat on his back on the lawn, with a heavy, unidentified weight handicapping his every effort to draw air. It took a moment to clear his vision – and then he instantly wished he could blot out the sight forever. Jed Bartlet's body rested across his chest, utterly still. Jed Bartlet's face pressed into his shoulder, eyes closed. Jed Bartlet's blood stained his suit, scarlet and fresh.

Charlie stood right over both of them, petrified, too stunned to make a sound.

This horrific scene detonated only a yard or two short of the Grand Entrance. In full public view. Agents from the tunnel closed in at once to form a protective circle, guns out – but not before the cameras, the fans, _all_ of them saw what so many of them had tried so earnestly to prevent: an unmoving world leader with unnatural burgundy all across the top of his head.

_"NO!"_ June's shriek split the skies.

"He can't be, he can't be, he _can't_ be…" Harry's repeated disbelief underlined his colleague's reaction: soft, unchanging, inescapable.

C.J. wrenched away from the sight. Toby caught and held her.

Debbie and Margaret grabbed for each other's arms, their breath rushing out in tandem.

Carol and all two dozen of her companions went stock-still in an instant.

Will grunted loudly, as if someone had punched him full in the stomach.

Josh reeled backwards, as though he could physically retreat from the truth.

Abbey's voice rang throughout the Residence: one sustained note of wordless denial.

The Family lost its patriarch.

The nation lost its duly elected representative.

The world lost a major component of its human conscience.

The crowd at Camden Yards didn't hear any vocal announcement – not even the piercing lament from the commentators' booth, which wasn't channeled through the speakers – but they had no need for it. The picture was real-time and magnified on the big screen for all to see. An ear-splitting howl billowed upwards on all sides, higher and stronger than anything the crowd had produced to date. This was not triumphant glee, nor terrified alarm. This was _grief._

Leo eased himself out from underneath the limp deadweight that was Jed Bartlet. Every muscle trembling, he cradled the bloody head as it lolled into his lap, and stared down at the still, expressionless face. _His_ expression was inconsolable.

Then, in the slow motion of a nightmare, he looked sideways… and met the desolate gaze of Ron Butterfield.

Ron's elevated eyebrows asked a single question.

Leo couldn't do it.

Ron could.

He crawled the last foot and a half over. For the first time showing fear at what he would find, he reached for the most obvious place to _know_: the throat. Searched for the pulse of his protectee – his _President._

The man he had offered his own life to protect. The man he had _failed._

He struggled to quell the tremor of his hand, to gain an accurate reading…

Then the fingers dropped away, scratching at the ground as Ron finally allowed himself to fall.

**TBC…**


	8. Chapter 8

** The West Wing **

**_FIRST STRIKE_**

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

** CHAPTER 8 **

History had just repeated itself, beyond the worst possible dreams of the direst doomsayer. The American people had seen their President killed right in front of them… and this after he'd shown such bravery in trying to keep everyone else safe despite their concern for _him._ He was a human being, and he was a leader – _their_ leader. Their voices rose together in a gestalt mourning and genuine tribute.

And then they revolted.

Leastwise, the small group of them with the will to act _did _act. Those few who had risked their own lives to track and surround the killer now threw caution to the winds and charged as one, in a fit of rage such as is only born from incalculable loss.

The gunman discovered several things in the same fleeting instant: that he's scored a one-in-a-million hit; that he'd finished the job his co-conspirators had failed to complete; that he would achieve history as the assassin of the President; that he was ringed by a mob after blood – _his_ blood; that he was about to be torn limb from limb. He raised his rifle in the meager hope of reducing his attackers by at least one –

One of the Secret Service agents already closing in on this section, with thanks to the stadium cameras, drew his pistol and fired first. He hadn't likely planned it, but the slug struck the sniper's weapon and flung its barrel towards the sky. It went off as a result, aimed at nothing. The window to the reporters' booth shattered, bullet and shards barely avoiding the two people inside – two people who had believed all along that _they_ at least were safe.

Without further ado the crowd of avengers pitched in. The gunman disappeared under the press of their numbers, wailing for the mercy he himself had refused to grant.

Nemesis became the name of this animal, this _mob_. Survival was no longer its goal.

Fear became anger.

Anger became blind rage.

Rage became retribution.

Agents arrived from all directions and waded through the maddened ranks, trying to stop the vigilantes from killing the sniper with their bare hands. The people might feel that they had the right to be revenged upon their President's murderer – a sentiment that the bodyguard cohort might well have shared – and they certainly reveled in taking a direct hand against the chaos that had so dominated their lives tonight. However, they were operating on killer instinct rather than clear thought, too impassioned to work together properly, and the shooter might wiggle out in the chaos. Besides, no one wanted these decent citizens to be turned into murderers themselves, even under stress like this. Then too, ideally the perp should be taken alive for questioning.

Suddenly the gigantic speakers erupted with the boom of a shuttle's afterburners.

_"HE'S ALIVE!"_

The world froze.

That same voice must've felt that such an unreal bulletin wouldn't be believed, _couldn't_ be believed, until it had been repeated at least once. Which was probably the case. _"THE PRESIDENT IS ALIVE!"_

The world hesitated.

_Could _it be?

One timid inch at a time, C.J. lifted her head. She had buried her face against Toby's neck, turning her back on a reality she simply couldn't endure. She'd seen her boss die twice tonight, or so she thought, and once was more than horrendous enough. Did she dare to revolve now, to nurture the tiniest smidgeon of hope, to see if maybe – just _maybe,_ for the _second_ time tonight – it wasn't true? Because what if it _was?_

Toby didn't glance at her. His face was slack, his mouth open. His eyes never left the TV no matter what it displayed. He was usually the last staffer to accept good news. After the pummeling vortex of this entire event, he refused to believe _anything_ without irrefutable proof. Twelve seconds ago, he had been presented with all the proof he had prayed _never_ to see. What new information could even remotely contest _that?_

Margaret looked up from her seat in one of the chairs in the Oval Office reception area. She had no memory at all of sitting down, or of _being_ seated; her brain was in total overload. First their leader was dead, then he _wasn't_, then he was shot again, then he was shot _again_, and then he was dead for _sure_… What could possibly be _real_ anymore?

Debbie looked up from her kneeling position beside Margaret's chair, gripping the arm rest, desperate for _some_ stability. She too felt like they were caught in a kind of temporal loop, doomed to forever repeat the same tragedy over and over again. She wanted this unbearable pendulum to end, finally, so that at last they'd know for certain. She wanted her boss to _live_ – but how could he or _any_ of them go on like this, living together _and dying_ together?

Carol stopped her flight short, one thin instant before she would have passed beyond earshot of the TVs. She had whirled and rammed her way through her colleagues, frantic to leave the bullpen, racing for – for where or what, she couldn't have said. Driven only by a sobbing need to flee. Now she spun back, every bit as driven to make sure. _How –?_

Will leaned on the edge of his desk, doubled over as though he was about to be sick. He couldn't stop himself from shaking. The human body can sometimes be astonishingly resilient to abuse, but constant and unremitting stress will break it down in the end. If he felt like this just watching the TV coverage, how had the President managed to go through it all first-hand? _Was_ he still numbered among the living after all, despite all evidence to the contrary?

Josh slowly moved his hands away from his face, peering out from behind the last bastion of defense between him and insanity. He sat slumped against the waiting room doorframe, elbows on knees, as though crushed into the smallest possible volume by what he had witnessed. The TV hung from the ceiling on the opposite wall several yards away, so distant as to be unimportant and yet strident enough to drag him back from catatonia. Was this what life would have to be for them all from now on – as empty and dead as…? Or had God Himself stepped in at the last instant?

The Secret Service agents in the Residence remained silent, as per their training. While on duty, it was not their place to celebrate the good times or mourn the bad times. They just stood there, with no specified task to do… except for one of their female members. She half-knelt on the rich carpet on front of the TV in the private sitting-room, supporting the upper half of the semi-recumbent First Lady. Abbey hovered on the precipice of a dead faint, as well as on the cusp of an existence without meaning. That last shot had hurled her out of her chair and out of all life as she wanted to live it. Could the woman against whom she leaned penetrate the cloying mists suffocating her soul and convince her that her husband might still be alive after all? Or was it already too late – for _both_ Bartlets?

Throughout the country, viewers and listeners shared in what was probably the most extreme, the most psychedelic kaleidoscope of emotion any of them had ever experienced. They had been fused together, moving as a single entity from celebration to shock to sorrow to disbelief to joy to amazement to admiration to suspense and back to sorrow, so fast and so intensely that they no longer knew which way to turn or what to feel. The ground underfoot had shifted too abruptly too many times. And now that they had finally, miserably resigned themselves to the fact that one of the most incredible personal battles ever fought had ended at last with inevitable defeat… their foundations heaved yet again, pitching them from one far end of the spectrum to the other. From the worst to the greatest – the transition was just too overwhelming.

In Oriole Park, those speakers were so huge, the sound system so cranked up, the commentator so overwhelmed, that those two shouted sentences half-deafened almost everyone in the bleachers. The loudness and the suddenness alone would have been more than enough – but when combined with the meaning behind the message, a formidable impact was assured. From those madly trying to force their way outside, to those too apathetic to care about their fate any longer, to those consumed by fury, that simple and unmistakable message penetrated every mind. Not all of them believed it on the spot, but almost every last one of them turned to see. Even the pile of citizens furiously trying to tear a killer apart couldn't resist that attraction.

For once the display had little to offer: a tight knot of many unidentified people just outside the Grand Entrance, and the leader of the free world nowhere in sight. The Number One camera had to aim almost straight down from its mounting, which one might think would provide an excellent view of these events, yet too many heads hovered too closely together to see anything past them.

Everyone knew, though, who had to be in the heart of that cluster. All viewers, from Baltimore to Honolulu, from Canada to Australia, beheld the ring of armed guards protectively surrounding the President of the United States at last.

Harry and June had switched on every connection they had, blaring their news not just to the world but to the stands as well, and tumbled over each other's sentences, rushing to express their wonder and their elation.

"It's true! It really is!"

"We got it from the Secret Service themselves! One of their agents was standing right here with us! We heard him – he was listening to his radio, and then he said, 'He's alive?' And then he rushed out!"

"We're _not_ making this up! That message couldn't have been about anyone else! Besides, nothing else would make the Secret Service run like that! The President has to be still alive!"

"Now we don't know his condition – we don't have any details at all – but if he can survive that last shot, then he just might pull through!"

"I can't imagine how _anyone_ could survive that! We _saw_ him hit! But they definitely said he's still alive!"

"It's a miracle!"

It was no less a miracle for one other person as well. The agents in the stands seized upon the break in combat between civilians and assassin, now doubly determined to take that assassin alive. This time the avengers did not object. The spell of the rabid pack had been well and truly broken. They drew back, some more slowly than others, but willing now to let the authorities take custody.

The shooter was in pretty rough shape already, his clothes torn and his skin bleeding in a dozen places. But at least he still breathed – as did his would-be victim.

If the President had not survived, quite a few of his constituents here tonight wouldn't have let up until his killer had been dispatched after him. However, now that they _knew_ their leader had pulled through, their opinions and emotions shifted from bloodlust to disgust. This villain still deserved to die, and he eventually might at the hands of the State… but there was no longer a burning need to kill him _now_, because he had _failed!_ Exchanging nods, without any words spoken, these champions for justice reached a mutual consensus that their prisoner wasn't worth sullying their hands or their legal standing. Let the justice system take over. It was the American way… and the way The Man would want it.

"We've just had visual confirmation that another gunman in the crowds has been arrested. We don't know how many there were total. There were at least two different weapons…"

"But they're probably all accounted for by now, or else no one would be lingering on the field for _any _reason. And that's certainly great news for all the fans still stuck here with us tonight!"

"It's great news for _everyone!_ But the news I _really_ want is on the President. We can't see a thing through the crowd of people around him down there."

"Most of those folks are wearing black; they have to be Secret Service. Some are in white, which would make them paramedics. That means they're working on him right there. I can't guess what they're doing – but it must be life-critical if they have to do it _now_ rather than wait until they reach the hospital."

"As of two minutes ago, he was still alive. But alive for _how long?_"

"If only someone would give us details!"

At least the cordite-tainted angle to the domestic crisis of the year could be laid to rest – and what better way to end that immediate terror than to _show_ everyone that it _had_ ended? No matter what people reported on the wires, most times you have to see to believe. Greg the producer was again free to concentrate on the news angle, free to seek out and transmit the best coverage. He aimed every camera in the park on the executive lawn party, and resumed the rotation of all video input through the regular broadcasting frequencies, which meant on the jumbo display board as well. Those spectators who had decided to hold up on their manic push for the exits embraced all images from all directions, each different vantage point providing another brick in the foundation of certainty, making this whole scenario that much more _real._

For all its reality, it offered no actual explanation. Did that armed circle provide essential security for a living man, or an honor guard for a dead one?

Then suddenly the vertical perspective again claimed precedence, as that gathering moved towards the tunnel mouth in a swift, compact group. Finally, people weren't bending over like a football huddle, or engaged in emergency first aid on the spot. They'd produced a stretcher and loaded the President's body onto it. The first camera recorded a perfect bird's-eye view of many hands rapidly bearing their Chief Executive away.

Of course they'd rush to get him out of there; the Service wouldn't wait to see if there just might be a _fourth_ shooter in the stadium. In any event, prompt, complex, fully supported medical care was clearly called for.

Medical care meant treatment. Healing. Survival.

Also, for the first time since he had originally stepped into view from the Grand Entrance so many endless minutes ago, thick security forces flanked him on all sides. Regardless of his current condition, no other threat would get near him now.

Security meant protection. Safety. Survival.

Assuming it wasn't already too late. Death can get through _any_ barrier.

This sure wasn't how The Man should have taken his leave after opening the first game of the season for his nation's favorite pastime. It also wasn't how any other injured player would have been helped off the field after twisting his knee or something equally superficial. This was fast, urgent – desperate. Deadly force wrapped around frantically-wielded medical skill. But it possessed an element of triumph nonetheless. This most central of _all_ players on the human stage had fought the good fight, he had suffered greatly for it, and he had emerged victorious.

Now – would he live to celebrate his victory?

Mere seconds later, additional stretchers and stretcher-bearers appeared to claim the other two wounded… and the trio of fatalities.

Both commentators observed a respectful silence. Those with TVs could see; those with radios didn't need a recap of words inadequate to describe this sad obligation, and the supreme sacrifice it showcased.

In a sign of similar deference, the cameras did not zoom in. Denied their presidential target, they withdrew to wider angles of the diamond, which no athletic cleat had marred this night… but which ripping bullets and dark red bloodstains _had_ marred for the first time in the history of the sport.

The outfield, a far greater area, was both empty and pristine, as it had been all night. By that barrenness and that perfection it seemed to epitomize the contrast between the carnage of this evening and what _should_ have been happening: an entirely different field of play, one of battle simulated and victory without bloodshed. Consider how important so many people view such a game to be… and then consider the war that was waged here instead – for the life of a man, and the stability of a nation.

Particularly discerning viewers might also have noticed one extra detail, more captivating than all the others: a tiny brown smudge left behind on the pitcher's mound. The President's abandoned baseball glove.

"That shot must've been only a glancing blow or something. He'd never have survived it otherwise."

"Scalp wounds always bleed a lot; they usually look worse than they are."

"Usually, huh? But how critical _is_ it?"

"It's a gunshot wound – it's a hit to the _head!_ It _has_ to be critical."

"Still, so long as the skull is intact, then he's got a chance. If it isn't… no, I do _not_ want to go there."

"Even a graze can mean serious trouble. Dear Lord, we could be talking about any degree of cerebral injury! The brain is so fragile…"

"Stop right there. We will _not_ start slinging theories around. The President is in the hands of the doctors now. If he can be saved, he will be."

"Agreed. The all-important thing is, at the moment President Bartlet is still alive. But if only we knew he'd _stay_ that way!"

A sense of unreality, a pause, settled over the park as these words echoed from the speakers and their meaning sank in. Also, more and more of them were picking up the grapevine of how common citizens brought down the last killer, how their own ranks had helped save them. _They _had caught the shooter; _they_ had played a vital role in their President's salvation. They had metamorphosed from fellow victims into staunch defenders – not just cowering and helpless, leaving the work to others, but embracing the duty and the danger, joining together in strength to fight for truth – for life.

They were Americans, upholding their leader and their country… but even more important, they were fellow human beings.

In the end, the mob had lost.

And then there burst fourth the greatest cheering of all. It flooded out of lungs and hearts, overflowing the bleachers, the directionals and the wires. People cut loose with wild celebration, rejoicing in their President's incredible survival. He was still clinging to life – after they had all thought him to be dead several times over.

They rejoiced in their own deliverance as well. It was _over; _Bartlet's unopposed removal from the field corroborated that. No one would be shooting at the stands anymore. Self-preservation, spurred on by the most raking terror, naturally took precedence over everything else: preservation of their family members, their friends, and first and foremost _themselves_. Survival of the individual is _the_ most compelling of instincts. Now each individual celebrated because personal survival, group survival _and_ national survival was assured.

Sometimes that self-preserving instinct _can_ give ground to the welfare of the many for the greater good. They had seen this today, seen it in the form of the man they had chosen as their leader. And where he had led, they had followed proudly.

Had the Baltimore Orioles won their home game that they never played on this Opening Day, Camden Yards could not have seen greater mayhem.

Harry and June pitched in with a will.

"Thank Heaven, there appear to be few casualties among the crowds themselves."

"And after that stampede, too! It could have been a real catastrophe."

"Amen. In fact, we're lucky not to have added to the body count ourselves! This is one neat hole through our window."

"And least everyone should be willing to slow down and leave in a more orderly fashion. That'll get them out faster anyway."

"Now if only _someone_ would assure us that the President will be all right…"

"I swear I'm still in shock. To see him go through that horror… and now he _still_ might not make it…"

"He _has_ to make it. We've got to _believe_ that."

C.J. and Toby sat on the sofa in his office, side by side, leaning into each other's shoulders. However, this quiet stillness was an illusion. Just as no words could have encompassed their earlier grief, neither could words adequately capture their current concern. They needed to prepare statements for the press on the entire affair, the President's condition, the fallen agents, the gunmen themselves… but all this could be put off for another few minutes. Now they waited for a phone call from their colleagues on that Baltimore trip. They waited to learn if their boss had in fact survived.

Margaret leaned forward in her seat, buried her face in her hands, and released her quiet sobs. Debbie stood nearby, brushing at her own damp eyes. They were overpoweringly glad for their boss, and for their own existence under his authority, and for the well-being of the country, and for the preservation of a shaky world peace that could yet lead to much more. The only shrieking question left was, whether he would live long to see that future himself.

Carol and her comrades milled about, laughing and crying. Their endless roller coaster ride had finally docked, leaving them with wobbly legs and aching heads, and quivering senses that would not be suppressed. Their boss hadn't been guaranteed a recovery yet by any means, but they as a group seemed to adopt a common conviction: refusing to believe that he wouldn't pull through. Surely a strong enough conviction _would_ bring him home.

Will sat slowly back in his desk chair, releasing a very long sigh. He could not have felt more worn out if he'd just run a marathon; emotional extremes are more wearisome than muscular exertion any day. For a few moments he glanced around his office, pondering what it meant. He _still_ didn't work for the President of the United States – and this time he blessed that fact with all his heart. _And_ he hoped dearly that he wouldn't be working for the President tomorrow.

Josh wandered over to the door between him and the German hospital's operating room. For the first time this evening since that First Pitch, he turned his back on the TV. The President had gone through a horrible ordeal, but he possessed an incredible mental and spiritual strength that only his family and close friends had known before today. Now, at last, he was in the best of medical hands. He'd be all right. Donna still faced her own ordeal, every bit as painful and hard. She too was in competent medical hands – and she was a very strong person herself. She would endure as well.

The Secret Service did not quit the Residence; they'd very shortly be conducting the First Lady to a certain hospital ward. However, those who had entered the private sitting-room earlier now stepped out, granting its occupant some privacy. Abbey knelt on the floor, head upturned, eyes closed, hands folded, and silently poured out her soul in the deepest possible thanks for the One who had saved her love – and in petition that He would continue to preserve that love, that _life_. The emotional well-being of three daughters, the stability of a country and the prospects of world peace still hung in the balance as well… but no one could blame the wife of the President for just now thinking solely about one man.

June and Harry had subsided somewhat, finding their old rhythm again as sportscasters. There was still so much to share with so many…

"Wow. This has been an Opening Day to beat all others."

"We never even got to the game itself, which is certainly a first."

"I couldn't care less. I just want the President to be all right."

"We said at the start of all this that we wanted him to remember his evening with us… God, I sure didn't have _this_ in mind!"

"None of us did. But so long as he recovers, _then_ we can joke about it."

"Oh, I _hope_ he will!"

"Greg, I know you've got the pitch on reel, but don't replay it now. Certainly not before we know for sure that the President's going to be okay. The First Family doesn't deserve that. Come to think of it, the rest of us don't either."

"As for the shooters, we haven't heard anything else on that angle. At least one was arrested; our cameras caught the whole thing. The other two must've been either caught or killed. I expect the White House will make a statement before long…"

"Well, I know _I_ want to make a statement. Let's give credit where credit is due. Tonight President Bartlet was subjected to the most lethal enemy fire imaginable – and he showed the highest degree of courage and the noblest consideration for others' welfare that I have _ever_ seen."

"That goes double for me, and I've covered war stories before. He passed through the furnace, and he never backed down. He put the nation's safety ahead of his own, every step of the way. _This_ is what it means to be a leader."

"And right now our leader is on his way to the nearest hospital, where he will receive the expert treatment he so thoroughly deserves."

"He's _got_ to live. After all he's been through…"

"I concur. For him to die now would be monumentally unfair."

"I have no doubt that the prayers of all of America go with him."

The executive motorcade careened through the city streets, exactly as predicted. Police cruisers and cycles flanked this privileged procession fore and aft, brushing all other traffic aside. The President was leaving Oriole Park the same way he had arrived: to a concert of flashing strobe lights and blaring sirens – but there the similarity ended. His current rate of speed, for safety reasons never less than "brisk," right now hovered closer to "breakneck." And for once, he didn't travel by armored limousine. Tonight the position of honor in the heavily-guarded center belonged not to a long black car, but to a boxy white ambulance.

Jed Bartlet revived slowly, much like a determined yet fatigued swimmer fighting a tumultuous current. Something inside refused to let him rest. _Not yet. _There were still things to do, things to know…

Information snippets settled into place, one puzzle piece at a time. His bed rocked, a constant and irregular motion that didn't do any favors for his spinning head or his battered ribs, and loud ringing sounds assaulted his ears. Fiery teeth attacked him from all sides. He tried to impose order on this chaos, to ride the surf of torment, to dredge some meaning from his befuddled memories.

Two people leaned over him. He blinked groggily…

"Hey." His right-hand man offered what was for him a broad smile.

Breathing remained a painful chore, speaking even worse. Bartlet's chin lifted a notch, silently asking a question. It could probably be translated as _"What the hell?"_

"Hold still, Mr. President," the other man advised before Leo could speak. This stranger wore mostly white, with an embroidered badge on his shirt that displayed a serpent twining around a pole. _Any_ husband of a medical doctor would have seen that symbol often enough before: medical staff. Actually, any Chief Executive would as well; The Man had commented before on how often he was manhandled by physicians.

Hold still – in this bouncing cradle? Then again, both pain and exhaustion made even the thought of movement unendurable. His bullet-scorched spine yearned for relief from his own weight, but they clearly had to keep him face up and belted down. No alternative.

Ambulances are square vans of the broadest possible wheelbase, and absolutely crammed with equipment. The gurney had been inserted feet first, then locked down against the portside wall. Leo had wedged himself into a narrow gap between that gurney and the port rear door. Another man had secured an equally small space by the _starboard _rear door, his black business suit screaming "Secret Service." A second paramedic was assisting the first, positioned near the forward divider. Five men, one prostrate, plus shelves of medical supplies filled the interior to capacity: none of them had any room to fall over even if they'd wanted to.

It might be worth noting that this was not just any ambulance, and not just any random choice for attendants. The structural integrity of the vehicle went far beyond hospital regulations, and the medical personnel had to be cleared by the Service. This particular team, with its customized transportation, followed the President _everywhere_ – always praying that they would not be needed.

There would have been no question of excluding _all_ bodyguards, no matter how much of a premium was put on space, no matter how much manpower and firepower loomed right outside. This lone escort guarded the principal exit against even the remotest odds of a further assault. Leo would've been a slightly more dubious addition, his own rank and influence notwithstanding. However, the Secret Service knew that the President and his second-in-command were going to need each other – officially _and_ personally. The only people around who could ensure that Bartlet and Leo would behave were Leo and Bartlet.

Leo was even earning his ticket by helping a bit; he held a thick gauze pad to the patient's crown. The agent did not pitch in; he always had to keep his hands free. The EMTs worked with choreographed precision: one on the blood pressure cuff, one applying a thick sterile dressing to the patient's right calf.

Had The Man possessed a better perspective than _as_ the patient, he would have seen the blood matting his hair and the paleness of his face. He would have seen where two layers of right sleeve had been sliced away completely and where his blood-soaked right pant leg had been slit to the knee. He would have seen the halves of his already-ruined sports jacket hanging over the gurney's edge, cut apart since the safety strap impeded the zipper, and the similarly-dissected remains of his blue shirt, which was now open to the waist. He would have seen the Kevlar vest, discarded at last and kicked out of the way, its uppermost panel displaying a small, dark, hideous hole almost all the way through. He would have seen the angry red scrape from his cheekbone to his jawbone, and the savage purple bruise already flaring up not far south of his collarbone.

Sensation provided several clues: the last sections of cloth and the wide restraints that together bound his arms, air on exposed skin and raw skin, the firm wrapping on his leg wound, the all-too-familiar squeezing cuff on his bicep, the sudden cold contact of a stethoscope to his bare chest, the deep-set burning in his upper rib cage, the even deeper ache across his back – not aided by lying on it – the constant effort just to breathe…

His perspective did pay off in other ways: he suddenly noticed the red-brown stain across Leo's shoulder. It could not have been caused by anything else.

Anguish and weariness gave ground to fear, such a fear that no amount of pain could stifle. "Leo –"

His old comrade placed a calming hand on his shoulder, preempting further concern and any additional effort that concern would be sure to generate. "It's okay. I'm fine. You just gave an involuntary blood donation."

These two had been friends for decades. They could almost read each other other's mind at times. They knew when humor would work fastest to diffuse worry or frustration.

The fact that it was his own blood did not bother Bartlet much at all. At least it wasn't anyone else's. He subsided with a long exhalation, his relief so great that it sponsored a small surge of strength. Typically, he couldn't resist a wisecrack. "Gonna charge me… for the cleaning costs… know it…"

"You bet I will. Especially after the scare you gave _us_." Leo turned an inquiring eye towards the EMTs.

"BP is dropping," one reported. "It was most likely sky-high earlier, but by now the stress is wearing off and the blood loss is taking hold."

"Lungs are clear," his partner added. "But there's some severe rib trauma."

"Coulda… told you that…" the President wheezed. He tried to watch as they started preparing some kind of intravenous drip, probably the initial guard against shock, but straining his peripheral vision wasn't worth the effort.

"Anytime you fellas want to… you know, fill in the blanks… that's fine with me…"

Leo well knew The Man's thirst for information at all times in all things; a vague reassurance would consume more energy than a full explanation. "Contrary to the most pessimistic predictions, you dodged the bullet after all. This –" he nodded at the scarlet-stained pad he held in place "– was caused by a hunk of flying rock. The last round that just barely missed you chipped it right out from the concrete wall. It must've had a jagged edge, and it must've been moving almighty fast, but you should get by with nothing worse than a bunch of stitches."

"Scalp wounds are always messy," one of the attendants contributed. "But better the stone than the bullet any day. There's far less force, and therefore less chance of a concussion – especially with the complications of the MS."

Bartlet's eyes snapped his way, startled. That had never crossed his mind.

"Take it easy, sir. We can't tell yet, but it may not be an actual concern tonight. In either event, you have nothing to worry about. Everything's under control."

"Sure… nothing to worry about at all… You haven't met my wife." He watched unhappily as the IV needle slid into his vein. But whether from weariness or resignation or even denial, he chose not to comment further. What could it matter now?

Leo leaped for a diversion. "You're the only guy I know who could wheedle a _fourth_ strike out of the game." He was rewarded by a short half-chuckle.

Then his friend shifted gears. Recollection was realigning itself. "Ron?"

"Following us in another ambulance. He'll need a transfusion or two, but he's going to be all right. Knowing him, he's more worried about you." Leo hiked a sardonic eyebrow; sometimes cold facts can be quite amusing. "_And_ pissed off at you."

The President grunted. "Business as usual." That _was_ good news. If Ron had _not_ been well enough to get mad at him… Normally the senior agent would have been nowhere else but here, but he needed his own first aid just now. The Service had wisely sent a bodyguard who could actually stand. Besides, this ambulance was reserved for The Man alone. Local paramedics had hustled to the ballpark within the first few minutes; they'd see to everyone else.

"Others?"

"The second agent's chances are at least fifty-fifty. They're taking him to a different hospital so there won't be any delay over his surgery."

Bartlet weakly nodded his agreement with this precaution. His eyes drifted around the cramped cabin, much the same way his brain was wandering through a maze of facts; he couldn't decide where to go next.

Leo caught the distinct flare of grief in those blue eyes and anticipated the next one, very softly. "Three agents dead."

The President exhaled slowly. He'd already known that, of course, but somehow needed to have the ugly truth confirmed, as though only then would he be free to mourn.

"But the last I heard, there were no serious injuries in the crowd. Of course, we won't hear anything definite for awhile…"

"There had _better_ be… no other injuries on my account." As though anyone could possibly blame him. Besides himself, that is.

He glanced about a bit more, looking for comfort… for an explanation of something else that didn't feel right. Then it came to him. "Charlie?"

"In the car right behind us, and safe. We had some trouble convincing him that he couldn't fit in here." Leo flickered another grin.

So did his boss. "I… like it cozy." Another pause, another grindingly slow evaluation of priorities. "National –?"

"Security is uncompromised, as far as we can tell. Three shooters were involved; two have been arrested, one killed. We don't know yet what their affiliation is, but that'll come."

Leo chose not to mention the potential upset brewing over the proposed peace summit, of which his leader still knew nothing. It made for a quandary, though. Would tonight's events help the initiative, or hinder it? Would it bolter others' desire to destroy _all_ forms of terrorism? Would it generate sympathy and cooperation for the man who had passed through such a trial? Or would it convince everyone that the only alternative was to fight violence with violence?

Leo was a professional worrier. His job demanded it anyway. However, he had something even more critical to dwell on just now. There would be time enough later for seeking common ground between enemies, for hammering peace out of war. The President would have to heal almost completely before he could hope to tackle _that_ tiger. Events and nations would wait for him. At least he was still around to play a living role rather than a posthumous one.

The ambulance took a sharp corner at a fast clip, exhibiting the evenness of a highly skilled driver – and the irresistible pull of centrifugal forces. The four men upright all swayed like dominoes, leaning into any object that would steady them.

Bartlet's head rolled a bit from side to side at this vehicular movement, despite the gentle touch against his skull. As though something inside had been rattled loose in consequence, his immensely tired mind made another right turn. "Say… how many eons of the world have passed… since I walked out there?"

Leo fell right in with the mood. "I'm not sure. Somewhere back in the same ice age when we were shouting at each other."

They shared a very private look, these two old friends.

The President breathed out cautiously, unable to prevent a wince. "Remember what you said earlier…?"

"What? And when?" It was hard to believe that they had arrived at Camden Yards so few revolutions of a minute hand ago.

"Gun-shy."

The Chief of Staff looked aside in embarrassment. "Oh, forget I said _anything_."

"No." Bartlet struggled to get his words around the awful illusion of a compressed thorax. They were important to the healing… and to the truth. "You're right."

He sounded like he believed it. If he hadn't been worried previously about using force, when the weapons _and the targets_ were abstract pieces on an international chess board, no one in the world could fault him for being so now. To unleash a punishment anything like what he had undergone this evening, to extract the same price from other human beings that he had just paid out of his own hide… for _any_ reason…

How could any sane individual even witness the events in Baltimore tonight and not desire peace above all else?

"Hell with _that_." Leo actually snorted. "You just proved me wrong. Me and the rest of the world."

Truly, sometimes it requires more courage to refuse the fight, to resist the allure of force and vengeance, to see beyond the generalizations. And when you serve at the highest level of government, generalizations are often the only viewpoint you get. Policy, formulae, strategy… each is vital to the running of a nation, and each can prevent even the most compassionate soul from really seeing the individual element.

Until one goes through a personal crisis like this.

The President didn't make a sound for several seconds, while the ambulance sped rapidly along and the paramedics concentrated on their first aid and the lone agent pretended to be invisible. His mobile features still betrayed a lingering concern over that volatile exchange in the tunnel before he had walked away. He and his Chief of Staff had frequently disagreed on politics before, but never so ferociously. It had cut them both to the core.

From all appearances, Leo had clean forgotten how annoyed he had been with this man; he could only think of what he'd come so close to losing: his leader _and_ his friend. And that after they had parted in anger. Some things really are not important in the end – but a friend is never one of them. Even if he _was_ the President of the United States.

He had always been by far the less demonstrative of the two. Now he scrambled for some way to express what he desperately needed to say.

"Remember the last time we saw a movie like this?" That had been in a D.C. ER right after Rosslyn. He waited until the uncertain eye-rolling switched to a perplexed nod. "You told me then that everything was going to be okay."

Even a floaty brain could never forget such a precious moment.

Leo managed to look serious and impish at the same time. "Now I'm telling you the same thing."

It made for a touching apology, from the man who felt that he was more at fault.

Bartlet read all of this in the craggy visage bent over him, and his own abraded face smoothed out into a genuine smile as well.

Thus did The Man yield up the last of his apprehension, no longer prodded by either official duty or private regret. The nation was safe, and his relationship with his right-hand man was _right_ again. He was free to rest.

With that knowledge, his wobbly mind wanted to know only one more thing.

"Did I… make it across the plate?"

_W.H.A.C.L.O.B., November 2004._

_- SheilaVR. (jubilatemagma.ca)_

_- Anne Callanan (annemcalgofree.indigo.ie)_

_- Kelly )_

_- SamSingingWolf )_

_- Kathleen Lehew )_


End file.
